With lots of help from Simon, I bought a new PC and even managed to find most of the drivers to get it up and running yesterday.
It's a second hand Compaq: P4 2.8GHz; 1 gig of ram; 40 gig hard drive (fine since I bought the 250 gig drive the previous weekend); DVD burner; ethernet; USB 2.0; Windows XP Pro; and a 17" monitor. Sweet. It's a lot faster than I though I'd be able to get, and the extra ram and XP Pro pushed the price up by about $200 each, so I'm pretty happy to have paid $920 for it. And the DVD burner will make it a lot cheaper to send tv shows to people. (Hint, hint.)
And I need to run VPC so that I can have a WinServer 2003 VPC with SharePoint Portal Server on it, as well as a machine to develop on.
Man, PCs are irritating! They don't just work! I -- well, okay, Simon has to go online for hours and look for all the s33krit drivers required to make it work. This is probably part of the problem with buying a second hand machine, and you're probably all saying, Duh, but this is my weblog, so stating the obvious and complaining about things that can't be fixed is one of my inalienable rights, dammit.
And it's a shame that ted's helpful advice came a little too late, but I don't think it would have changed much. From what I could tell from checking out some of the online suppliers, computers at a computer fair are around about three hundred dollars cheaper. I was also amazed by the number of cool things you can buy for under $30: Bluetooth dongles and USB hubs and internal drives and all kinds of other things, woo.
Now I've just got to worry about keeping the damn thing free of viruses and malware and all those other things. I have a two step plan though: only connect to the ADSL when necessary and Firefox.
* Mission accomplished.
February 27, 2005
February 24, 2005
New PC
I need a new PC and since I don't yet have the fabulous riches that
may at some future time be mine, it will probably need to be a fairly
cheap and nasty one.
Below is basically what I think I need, and I'm looking for specific
advice. (ted, Andrew, anyone?) The main requirement is that it can run
Virtual PC (hence the RAM), and not games.
CPU - fully compatible, at least 1GHz
Cache - whatever
Chassis - whatever
RAM: 750meg minimum, 1G preferred
HD: at least 40G
CD: whatever
DVD: not required
Audio: whatever
Graphics: low is better
Network: Ethernet 100
USB 2.0: required
Keyboard: only if included
Mouse: only if included
Monitor: at least 17" CRT. LCD not required.
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional
To me, this looks like a second hand machine. Maybe a government sale?
Anyway, I'm going to try to get one like this on the weekend, pending
any better advice. (I'm trying posting to my blog via email. Hope it
works!)
may at some future time be mine, it will probably need to be a fairly
cheap and nasty one.
Below is basically what I think I need, and I'm looking for specific
advice. (ted, Andrew, anyone?) The main requirement is that it can run
Virtual PC (hence the RAM), and not games.
CPU - fully compatible, at least 1GHz
Cache - whatever
Chassis - whatever
RAM: 750meg minimum, 1G preferred
HD: at least 40G
CD: whatever
DVD: not required
Audio: whatever
Graphics: low is better
Network: Ethernet 100
USB 2.0: required
Keyboard: only if included
Mouse: only if included
Monitor: at least 17" CRT. LCD not required.
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional
To me, this looks like a second hand machine. Maybe a government sale?
Anyway, I'm going to try to get one like this on the weekend, pending
any better advice. (I'm trying posting to my blog via email. Hope it
works!)
February 23, 2005
Gmail invites up for grabs
I was going to post about all the bazillions of things that I have to do, but instead, I'll just say: I have a bunch of GMail invites. If you'd like a GMail account, just ask me. First come, first served but since I have a bunch of 'em, go crazy.
I quite like how GMail handles email as "conversations" rather than inbox vs outbox. And a gig of space doesn't hurt either. But if you haven't heard much about GMail, you should probably be aware that some people are deeply concerned with what Google is doing with your mail, including how much information they are extracting about you to create targeted advertising. And they use cookies to track your use of Google while you're using GMail. And just because you delete an email doesn't mean it's gone from their servers. And so on.
Personally, I read their privacy page pretty carefully, and I'm okay with it.
I quite like how GMail handles email as "conversations" rather than inbox vs outbox. And a gig of space doesn't hurt either. But if you haven't heard much about GMail, you should probably be aware that some people are deeply concerned with what Google is doing with your mail, including how much information they are extracting about you to create targeted advertising. And they use cookies to track your use of Google while you're using GMail. And just because you delete an email doesn't mean it's gone from their servers. And so on.
Personally, I read their privacy page pretty carefully, and I'm okay with it.
February 22, 2005
My list of demands
I went to see a financial advisor today, and it was pretty interesting. I'll be calling him Mr Knows His Shit.
I think my favourite bit was when I'd explained my current expenses and my new income, and Mr KHS half-laughed as he said, "What are we going to do with all this money?" And I laughed too, because I don't know.
Even taking into account the previously mentioned Japan trip, spending $5-7k on a new computer (which is a shitload), and paying off bills and insurance and blah blah, there's still an awful lot of money coming my way.
"What do you want?" Mr KHS asked. And, dear reader, I don't know.
When he asked, I had to say I don't know what I want now. I don't know what I want in three to seven years. And I don't know what I want to do in thirty years when my super becomes available.
But since then, I've been thinking about it, and I have a list.
1. I want to be happy.
1a. I want to have someone to be happy with.
2. I want to not have to worry about money so much.
Done. My "don't want" list is much longer. A car. A house. Jewellery. Stock. Holidays (as a rule). I don't want to get married. I don't want a house full of expensive or matching stuff.
I guess I could add a bunch of other stuff to my wanted list (a new VCR, work clothes, to give more away) but really, those are relatively minor, in the (grand) scheme of (expensive) things.
Isn't that kind of weird? That I haven't thought ahead? Even when I had a full-time, permanent job? No planning. Man, that sucks. Must plan.
I wonder if this means I'm finally going to be getting my shit together. In a similar vein, I wonder if this exact same thing happened to Alix, about five years ago. And I wonder how it's working out for her.
Maybe I should talk myself into wanting a house. I really do love what Dave and Fiona are doing with theirs.
I think my favourite bit was when I'd explained my current expenses and my new income, and Mr KHS half-laughed as he said, "What are we going to do with all this money?" And I laughed too, because I don't know.
Even taking into account the previously mentioned Japan trip, spending $5-7k on a new computer (which is a shitload), and paying off bills and insurance and blah blah, there's still an awful lot of money coming my way.
"What do you want?" Mr KHS asked. And, dear reader, I don't know.
When he asked, I had to say I don't know what I want now. I don't know what I want in three to seven years. And I don't know what I want to do in thirty years when my super becomes available.
But since then, I've been thinking about it, and I have a list.
1. I want to be happy.
1a. I want to have someone to be happy with.
2. I want to not have to worry about money so much.
Done. My "don't want" list is much longer. A car. A house. Jewellery. Stock. Holidays (as a rule). I don't want to get married. I don't want a house full of expensive or matching stuff.
I guess I could add a bunch of other stuff to my wanted list (a new VCR, work clothes, to give more away) but really, those are relatively minor, in the (grand) scheme of (expensive) things.
Isn't that kind of weird? That I haven't thought ahead? Even when I had a full-time, permanent job? No planning. Man, that sucks. Must plan.
I wonder if this means I'm finally going to be getting my shit together. In a similar vein, I wonder if this exact same thing happened to Alix, about five years ago. And I wonder how it's working out for her.
Maybe I should talk myself into wanting a house. I really do love what Dave and Fiona are doing with theirs.
February 20, 2005
Music, ethernet, financial advisors and so on in that fashion
Simon's been finding cool music lately. ted in particular might like this: Rodeohead This link will probably only last a week, but since it's free... http://www.yousendit.com
Also, did you know that you can share your ADSL connection between your eMac and a Windows XP box by just connecting them with an ethernet cable? Me either. Damn, it's just that easy.
This is a good sign for when I get a new pc. I kind of wanted to get one this weekend, but since there wasn't a computer fair on, opted for an external 250 gig drive instead. Maybe I'll wait and buy a laptop to reduce tax. Would that be wise? Who knows. I gotta get me a financial advisor who knows what they're talking about, contractually speaking. And I probably should get a mobile.
And one last thing in stream of consciousness blogging: I have a new email address. firstname.j.lastname@gmail.com (You'll need to put my actual first and last names in.) I'm going to use this one for contractual type stuff, but y'all can write to me there if you like.
Also, did you know that you can share your ADSL connection between your eMac and a Windows XP box by just connecting them with an ethernet cable? Me either. Damn, it's just that easy.
This is a good sign for when I get a new pc. I kind of wanted to get one this weekend, but since there wasn't a computer fair on, opted for an external 250 gig drive instead. Maybe I'll wait and buy a laptop to reduce tax. Would that be wise? Who knows. I gotta get me a financial advisor who knows what they're talking about, contractually speaking. And I probably should get a mobile.
And one last thing in stream of consciousness blogging: I have a new email address. firstname.j.lastname@gmail.com (You'll need to put my actual first and last names in.) I'm going to use this one for contractual type stuff, but y'all can write to me there if you like.
Spider!
Xopher has kindly lent me the digital camera that he hasn't used since his sister gave him after she found that she wasn't using it... So it's been two years since anyone used it.
It's quite cool. After some initial futzing about with settings and the book and the battery and so on, I used it to take a picture -- of a giant spider!
Waaargh!
This giant spider was originally in my room. Since I hate spiders in my room, I sprayed it with some bug spray. Actually, I sprayed it with a lot of bug spray. It dropped down behind one of my book cases, and I figured, no problem. It would take a few minutes to die and I would come across its giant corpse at some future stage.
But it didn't die. It hauled itself from behind the bookcase, out of my room, down the hallway, into the hallway cupboard briefly, back out into the kitchen, around behind the oven and back out again. I spent the whole time convinced that it would crawl behind something and have the fucking decency to die, but no. I finally got sick of not knowing where it might start crawling from next, and decided to scare it out onto the patio and then the garden.
By this time, I was kind of awed by its tenacity, and completely unwilling to either poison it further or squash it. (For one thing, it would have left a hell of a mess. And what if it still didn't die? A zombie, half-crushed spider would have even more reason to menace me.)
So I grabbed a handy broom and started thumping the ground near by, at which point it reared up on its back legs and exposed its fucking huge bitey spider jaws. I went to get the camera, and spent the next ten minutes or so trying to photograph it near something to show scale. There are more photos, but this is the least blurry of them.
This is easily the biggest spider I ever saw that wasn't safely in a zoo somewhere. Last time I saw it, it was heading into the garden. The rate it moves, it could well be back in my room by now... Freaky!
Also: I'm going to take the job. I give two weeks' notice on Monday. They're not giving me LWOP, even though I did my best to talk them into it. "Their loss," is a fairly common reaction to this news. Exciting new job! Did I mention it's the same place that Dave works? I don't think he even knows yet...
It's quite cool. After some initial futzing about with settings and the book and the battery and so on, I used it to take a picture -- of a giant spider!
Waaargh!
This giant spider was originally in my room. Since I hate spiders in my room, I sprayed it with some bug spray. Actually, I sprayed it with a lot of bug spray. It dropped down behind one of my book cases, and I figured, no problem. It would take a few minutes to die and I would come across its giant corpse at some future stage.
But it didn't die. It hauled itself from behind the bookcase, out of my room, down the hallway, into the hallway cupboard briefly, back out into the kitchen, around behind the oven and back out again. I spent the whole time convinced that it would crawl behind something and have the fucking decency to die, but no. I finally got sick of not knowing where it might start crawling from next, and decided to scare it out onto the patio and then the garden.
By this time, I was kind of awed by its tenacity, and completely unwilling to either poison it further or squash it. (For one thing, it would have left a hell of a mess. And what if it still didn't die? A zombie, half-crushed spider would have even more reason to menace me.)
So I grabbed a handy broom and started thumping the ground near by, at which point it reared up on its back legs and exposed its fucking huge bitey spider jaws. I went to get the camera, and spent the next ten minutes or so trying to photograph it near something to show scale. There are more photos, but this is the least blurry of them.
This is easily the biggest spider I ever saw that wasn't safely in a zoo somewhere. Last time I saw it, it was heading into the garden. The rate it moves, it could well be back in my room by now... Freaky!
Also: I'm going to take the job. I give two weeks' notice on Monday. They're not giving me LWOP, even though I did my best to talk them into it. "Their loss," is a fairly common reaction to this news. Exciting new job! Did I mention it's the same place that Dave works? I don't think he even knows yet...
February 17, 2005
Life decision... pending
Short summary: I'm being headhunted for twice as much money (in my hand). The job will be cool (tech + responsibility + opportunity). Current job is teh suk (--opportunity + --satisfaction + --responsibility).
But the new job is a six month contract, so that makes it a bit of a risk. But I'm going to try to get leave without pay from my current job, which would be a great safety net. I'm talking to someone about that tomorrow.
Either way, I think I'm going to give two weeks' notice on Monday. Eep!
Because I have this plan. I can work at the new job for six months, while saving money furiously. Then at the end of six months, if they're going to offer me another contract, I take a month off and go to Japan. (If ted was in fact serious about letting me visit.) If they're not, then I either return to my current job if I get LWOP, or else live off my Japan money until I get another job. I also really want to finish my MCAD during the six months. And maybe even start an MCSD (solutions developer).
But I come out of the six month contract with heaps more hands-on experience with SharePoint. This would be extra neat, as SharePoint experience is, allegedly, very much worth having. (It's the reason I'm being offered the current contract, for instance.)
Also, for those gentle readers who have been around for a while, it's funny to think that the Platitudinal Presenter may end up being correct about my earning power. Not that I'm where she said I would be yet, but I'm a hell of a lot closer than I was on Monday. Damn, this is going very fast.
PS. Twice as much money!
But the new job is a six month contract, so that makes it a bit of a risk. But I'm going to try to get leave without pay from my current job, which would be a great safety net. I'm talking to someone about that tomorrow.
Either way, I think I'm going to give two weeks' notice on Monday. Eep!
Because I have this plan. I can work at the new job for six months, while saving money furiously. Then at the end of six months, if they're going to offer me another contract, I take a month off and go to Japan. (If ted was in fact serious about letting me visit.) If they're not, then I either return to my current job if I get LWOP, or else live off my Japan money until I get another job. I also really want to finish my MCAD during the six months. And maybe even start an MCSD (solutions developer).
But I come out of the six month contract with heaps more hands-on experience with SharePoint. This would be extra neat, as SharePoint experience is, allegedly, very much worth having. (It's the reason I'm being offered the current contract, for instance.)
Also, for those gentle readers who have been around for a while, it's funny to think that the Platitudinal Presenter may end up being correct about my earning power. Not that I'm where she said I would be yet, but I'm a hell of a lot closer than I was on Monday. Damn, this is going very fast.
PS. Twice as much money!
February 15, 2005
Mmmm, recursion
I spent a very fun Saturday night (turns out I am a ginormous geek) re-writing my Perl script to create indexes of images. Mmm. Now it works about twenty times faster. Basic structure:
indexImages(a folder)
if (no sub folders)
create page for images in this folder
return link to this image page
else
start creating new index page
create page for images in this folder (if any)
add link to local images page to new index page (if required)
for each subfolder
add link to indexImages(subfolder) to new index page
return a link to this index page
Done!
That only took about five hours on Saturday night (and I started at 10.30 *facepalm*) and two hours on Sunday morning. The script also does some clever checking to see if there are existing files and overwrites them if required. It's neat. Just the thing to help read all those scanlations that I download.
Then tonight I spent an hour or so fixing up my stripBadHtml script. I download a lot of html encoded pages to read later, and usually other people have god-awful tables and fonts and background colours, so this script rips through a folder of files and processes them against a file of regular expression rules. It's recursive too, natch, though it really is just a loop. It does do some cool things around detecting whether a file requires a backup, and accepts a switch to force update all files (if I change the html rules, for instance).
Sample regular expressions from the rules:
<h3.*?>::
</h3>::
&\#133;::...
\.{4,}::...
†::
::
{2,}::
Youji::Yohji
Which shows that I'm fussy about illegal characters (like the dagger and 133), grammar (ellipses only have three dots, dammit), and spelling of characters' names. I'm actually very fussy: I've also got a bunch of common spelling mistakes in there. And lots more formatting stripping. There are almost eighty lines. Ahem.
Emma suggested that the Perl programming might be a Microsoft overreaction, and she's probably not wrong. Still: fun!
indexImages(a folder)
if (no sub folders)
create page for images in this folder
return link to this image page
else
start creating new index page
create page for images in this folder (if any)
add link to local images page to new index page (if required)
for each subfolder
add link to indexImages(subfolder) to new index page
return a link to this index page
Done!
That only took about five hours on Saturday night (and I started at 10.30 *facepalm*) and two hours on Sunday morning. The script also does some clever checking to see if there are existing files and overwrites them if required. It's neat. Just the thing to help read all those scanlations that I download.
Then tonight I spent an hour or so fixing up my stripBadHtml script. I download a lot of html encoded pages to read later, and usually other people have god-awful tables and fonts and background colours, so this script rips through a folder of files and processes them against a file of regular expression rules. It's recursive too, natch, though it really is just a loop. It does do some cool things around detecting whether a file requires a backup, and accepts a switch to force update all files (if I change the html rules, for instance).
Sample regular expressions from the rules:
<h3.*?>::
</h3>::
&\#133;::...
\.{4,}::...
†::
::
{2,}::
Youji::Yohji
Which shows that I'm fussy about illegal characters (like the dagger and 133), grammar (ellipses only have three dots, dammit), and spelling of characters' names. I'm actually very fussy: I've also got a bunch of common spelling mistakes in there. And lots more formatting stripping. There are almost eighty lines. Ahem.
Emma suggested that the Perl programming might be a Microsoft overreaction, and she's probably not wrong. Still: fun!
February 13, 2005
Earning her nickname
My mum called this morning, and amongst the things I mentioned was that Emma (Chris's girlfriend) just left after visiting for the weekend.
Me: Which was nice for Chris. He's been a bit sad, missing her.
Mum: Oh. Well. I think I owe Chris an apology.
Me: You do?
Mum: Well, I always thought he was ... gay.
Me: [amused pause] He did go out with me, Mum.
Mum: Yes, but.
Me: But?
Mum: I thought that was, you know. Platonic.
Me: Sorry to break it to you, mum, but no.
Mum: Oh. Well. You know, he's very quiet.
Tee hee. That's why some people call her Wonky Wah.
Me: Which was nice for Chris. He's been a bit sad, missing her.
Mum: Oh. Well. I think I owe Chris an apology.
Me: You do?
Mum: Well, I always thought he was ... gay.
Me: [amused pause] He did go out with me, Mum.
Mum: Yes, but.
Me: But?
Mum: I thought that was, you know. Platonic.
Me: Sorry to break it to you, mum, but no.
Mum: Oh. Well. You know, he's very quiet.
Tee hee. That's why some people call her Wonky Wah.
February 11, 2005
And the seventh seal was broken, and an Angel of Lord started to negotiate...
Soooo, I'm developing at the moment (using my l33t dotNet skillz) but I'm the programmer of last resort. I'm also the project manager. In fact, I'm the project team. Oh, how I long for the heady days when I had two programmers and a tester. Now I've just got me, and well. Sigh. Someone to help with testing. We'll call her A. We'll call my boss, B.
A has been supposed to be doing my unit testing (which is like beta testing, really) for aaaages. She's had 'other priorities'. And yesterday morning, she came to see me...
A: I can't test this week.
Me: Okay. Well, I was hoping to get it out of unit testing next week so...
A: I can't test this week though. I wanted to let you know.
Me: Perhaps you could get to it early next week.
A: Perhaps. [pause] I can't test it this week though. This is not the only thing I have to do. I have other priorities.
Me: [patiently] Okay.
Time passes.
Me: I'm a bit worried that the testing is getting delayed.
B: Didn't A negotiate a plan with you to get the testing done?
Me: No. A told me she couldn't do it.
B: [crankily] I told her to negotiate a time, not to put it off. What exactly did she say?
Me: She said she couldn't do it this week.
B: I'll talk to her and tell her to negotiate a time with you. She has to negotiate because she has other things that I need her to do, but I definitely want her to be doing your testing too.
Me: Okay.
Time passes.
B: I spoke to A. I told her that she definitely needs to improve her communication skills, and that she wasn't negotiating before.
Me: Okay.
B: So, I've [heavy emphasis] directed her to negotiate a time with you.
Me: Okay, thanks.
B: If she hasn't negotiated a time with you by Tuesday, let me know.
Me: Will do.
Time passes.
A: Linda, can I speak with you?
Me: Yes, sure.
A: When we were speaking before, you said that you wanted to get the testing done early next week.
Me: Yep. [Yay! Progress!]
A: I can't do it Monday or Tuesday.
Me: Oh. [Crap. No progress.]
A: I can maybe get to it Wednesday.
Me: Oh. How much time do you think it will take? How much do you estimate you still have left to do?
A: Only a couple of hours.
Me: Right.
A: I can't do the testing on Monday or Tuesday.
Me: [patiently, oh, so very patiently] Okay, well, I may have to speak with B...
A: But I can do it on Wednesday.
Me: I'll see what I can do when I speak to her about your time.
A: Okay. I can't do it on Monday or Tuesday. I have other priorities. [See how we're not even having a conversation? See?]
Me: Right.
A: [And this is it! Here comes the negotiation...] Is that okay with you?
Me: I'll speak to B and get back to you.
A: [crestfallen] Okay.
Did you miss it? Can you imagine what would have happened if I'd said yes? Rains of toads! Swarms of locusts! Biblical plagues of not-getting-the-testing-done-fucking-ever!
I'm thinking this might be a cultural thing though. Perhaps I should have said, "It must be done on Monday" every time she said she couldn't do it until Wednesday. I don't know. It's fairly frustrating. Especially since it's taken almost three and a half weeks to do a day of testing.
Does anyone else out there in gentle reader land have trouble with this kind of negotiation?
A has been supposed to be doing my unit testing (which is like beta testing, really) for aaaages. She's had 'other priorities'. And yesterday morning, she came to see me...
A: I can't test this week.
Me: Okay. Well, I was hoping to get it out of unit testing next week so...
A: I can't test this week though. I wanted to let you know.
Me: Perhaps you could get to it early next week.
A: Perhaps. [pause] I can't test it this week though. This is not the only thing I have to do. I have other priorities.
Me: [patiently] Okay.
Time passes.
Me: I'm a bit worried that the testing is getting delayed.
B: Didn't A negotiate a plan with you to get the testing done?
Me: No. A told me she couldn't do it.
B: [crankily] I told her to negotiate a time, not to put it off. What exactly did she say?
Me: She said she couldn't do it this week.
B: I'll talk to her and tell her to negotiate a time with you. She has to negotiate because she has other things that I need her to do, but I definitely want her to be doing your testing too.
Me: Okay.
Time passes.
B: I spoke to A. I told her that she definitely needs to improve her communication skills, and that she wasn't negotiating before.
Me: Okay.
B: So, I've [heavy emphasis] directed her to negotiate a time with you.
Me: Okay, thanks.
B: If she hasn't negotiated a time with you by Tuesday, let me know.
Me: Will do.
Time passes.
A: Linda, can I speak with you?
Me: Yes, sure.
A: When we were speaking before, you said that you wanted to get the testing done early next week.
Me: Yep. [Yay! Progress!]
A: I can't do it Monday or Tuesday.
Me: Oh. [Crap. No progress.]
A: I can maybe get to it Wednesday.
Me: Oh. How much time do you think it will take? How much do you estimate you still have left to do?
A: Only a couple of hours.
Me: Right.
A: I can't do the testing on Monday or Tuesday.
Me: [patiently, oh, so very patiently] Okay, well, I may have to speak with B...
A: But I can do it on Wednesday.
Me: I'll see what I can do when I speak to her about your time.
A: Okay. I can't do it on Monday or Tuesday. I have other priorities. [See how we're not even having a conversation? See?]
Me: Right.
A: [And this is it! Here comes the negotiation...] Is that okay with you?
Me: I'll speak to B and get back to you.
A: [crestfallen] Okay.
Did you miss it? Can you imagine what would have happened if I'd said yes? Rains of toads! Swarms of locusts! Biblical plagues of not-getting-the-testing-done-fucking-ever!
I'm thinking this might be a cultural thing though. Perhaps I should have said, "It must be done on Monday" every time she said she couldn't do it until Wednesday. I don't know. It's fairly frustrating. Especially since it's taken almost three and a half weeks to do a day of testing.
Does anyone else out there in gentle reader land have trouble with this kind of negotiation?
February 09, 2005
More online recs
Booktopia is an online Australian bookstore and while the website is flawed, the prices and the service are great. Or at least, my one order with them was both cheap and fast - obscure books imported from the US in two weeks for $13.50. Postage is $6.50 for up to twenty books.
I'm typing this in ecto - a Mac OSX blog client. I like it, but I'm going to have to pay for it in another two weeks. If I'm still using it after that, then I guess I really like it.
Oh, and the Battlestar Galactica premiere/opening movie/miniseries thing is showing on Friday/Saturday of this week. Woo!
I'm typing this in ecto - a Mac OSX blog client. I like it, but I'm going to have to pay for it in another two weeks. If I'm still using it after that, then I guess I really like it.
Oh, and the Battlestar Galactica premiere/opening movie/miniseries thing is showing on Friday/Saturday of this week. Woo!
February 08, 2005
In which bad things happen to good Lindas
I'm starting to think that I was actually, like, bullied at work yesterday. Where the definition of bullied is a big loud guy on the phone who is so angry with not being allowed to do what he wants that he threatens you. So you cave in and end up making a mistake. You call the New Guy and ask him to bend the rules for the Bully just to shut him up. And the New Guy does it, because he trusts you.
And then you realise that you fucked up and go explain the situation to your boss.
But at least she's supportive. "You were partly responsible for the situation, Linda. You should ring the New Guy and try to put it right."
So, you do. You ring the New Guy and tell him that you made a mistake. You don't hear any more from anyone, but the Bully rings you three times (you don't answer the phone) and emails twice before you slink home at five.
Anyway, we had a meeting about it this afternoon, without the Bully. The New Guy was very supportive. And quite angry at the Bully. And quite willing to support me putting in a grievance. (Which I won't do, as I don't think it's that serious.) The New Guy's boss was present, and also willing to support a grievance, as he too has extensive experience with the Bully's tactics.
My boss had moved on to being amused at how typical the Bully's behaviour was of him. And expounding at length at how reprehensible it is that no one's ever actually stood up to him.
(Man, I'm cranky about her reaction. It was a crappy situation, and my boss did nothing to make it any better. It was the New Guy who arranged today's meeting. My boss was over it.)
What the Bully actually said was at the end of a phone call that I made to him, about something entirely unrelated. He suddenly went off on a tangent about how he hadn't been able to bully the New Guy into giving him permission to make changes willy-nilly. The threatening was:
Bully: This change needs to be made! [Important people] are in *love* with this change. [They] specifically asked for it to be made! By tomorrow! Who should I speak to to make this happen?
Me: I can make the change, but as I mentioned before, you need to speak to the New Guy. He's the [responsible person].
Bully: I have spoken to him. I called him. Twice! I sent an email. Did you see the email?
Me: Yes, I saw it, but...
Bully: You know what? I wash my hands of it, Linda. And let me tell you that the fur is going to fly about this. And you know what? When it does, I'm going to make sure that everyone knows what happened.
A bit more context: the Bully is seriously actually six foot three. He's ex-army. He is way-way-way further up the ladder than me, and often claims to have the ear of some very important people. He loves to name drop. This is not the first time he's tried to shout me down, either. In the past, it's always been in a room full of people even higher than him who were 100% unwilling to put up with his crap. I hate it when he wins.
So, I caved, and rang the New Guy and got him to give me permission to give the Bully what he wanted. Fortunately, the Bully's also thick as a fucking plank and didn't actually follow my instructions, so his change was not made.
The New Guy rang the Bully this morning (after hearing about what he did to me yesterday) and asked a series of questions including:
Is it an urgent change? No. [*rage*. He insisted that it was to me the day before.]
When does it need to be made? Any time in the next few weeks.
So, the outcome is that the New Guy is deeply embarrassed about this -- I have a lot of sympathy for his position -- and angry about it. My boss thinks that I should reiterate our corporate values to the Bully next time he tries this sort of thing. (Ahh, yeah, sure. That sounds doable...) And, in the end the Bully didn't and won't get his way. Which is good.
And me? I'm venting on the Young Person's Interweb. Heh.
One more tiny story about how frustrating I find it to work with my boss.
[The day before I sat my exam.]
Me: [blah blah reporting on progress blah] Oh, and I just did one of the practice exams and got 100% for it.
Her: [after a pause, in a serious voice] You really do underestimate yourself, you know.
Me: [struggling gamely on, cheerily] That doesn't have to be a bad thing.
Her: [still serious] No, but you can take it too far.
So, yes. Having to look further for my validation at work these days. To, you know, work around my underestimation problem. *grin*. Luckily I have BettyBetty for immediate validation. "God, she's crap," says BettyBetty. And so say all of us. 8)
And then you realise that you fucked up and go explain the situation to your boss.
But at least she's supportive. "You were partly responsible for the situation, Linda. You should ring the New Guy and try to put it right."
So, you do. You ring the New Guy and tell him that you made a mistake. You don't hear any more from anyone, but the Bully rings you three times (you don't answer the phone) and emails twice before you slink home at five.
Anyway, we had a meeting about it this afternoon, without the Bully. The New Guy was very supportive. And quite angry at the Bully. And quite willing to support me putting in a grievance. (Which I won't do, as I don't think it's that serious.) The New Guy's boss was present, and also willing to support a grievance, as he too has extensive experience with the Bully's tactics.
My boss had moved on to being amused at how typical the Bully's behaviour was of him. And expounding at length at how reprehensible it is that no one's ever actually stood up to him.
(Man, I'm cranky about her reaction. It was a crappy situation, and my boss did nothing to make it any better. It was the New Guy who arranged today's meeting. My boss was over it.)
What the Bully actually said was at the end of a phone call that I made to him, about something entirely unrelated. He suddenly went off on a tangent about how he hadn't been able to bully the New Guy into giving him permission to make changes willy-nilly. The threatening was:
Bully: This change needs to be made! [Important people] are in *love* with this change. [They] specifically asked for it to be made! By tomorrow! Who should I speak to to make this happen?
Me: I can make the change, but as I mentioned before, you need to speak to the New Guy. He's the [responsible person].
Bully: I have spoken to him. I called him. Twice! I sent an email. Did you see the email?
Me: Yes, I saw it, but...
Bully: You know what? I wash my hands of it, Linda. And let me tell you that the fur is going to fly about this. And you know what? When it does, I'm going to make sure that everyone knows what happened.
A bit more context: the Bully is seriously actually six foot three. He's ex-army. He is way-way-way further up the ladder than me, and often claims to have the ear of some very important people. He loves to name drop. This is not the first time he's tried to shout me down, either. In the past, it's always been in a room full of people even higher than him who were 100% unwilling to put up with his crap. I hate it when he wins.
So, I caved, and rang the New Guy and got him to give me permission to give the Bully what he wanted. Fortunately, the Bully's also thick as a fucking plank and didn't actually follow my instructions, so his change was not made.
The New Guy rang the Bully this morning (after hearing about what he did to me yesterday) and asked a series of questions including:
Is it an urgent change? No. [*rage*. He insisted that it was to me the day before.]
When does it need to be made? Any time in the next few weeks.
So, the outcome is that the New Guy is deeply embarrassed about this -- I have a lot of sympathy for his position -- and angry about it. My boss thinks that I should reiterate our corporate values to the Bully next time he tries this sort of thing. (Ahh, yeah, sure. That sounds doable...) And, in the end the Bully didn't and won't get his way. Which is good.
And me? I'm venting on the Young Person's Interweb. Heh.
One more tiny story about how frustrating I find it to work with my boss.
[The day before I sat my exam.]
Me: [blah blah reporting on progress blah] Oh, and I just did one of the practice exams and got 100% for it.
Her: [after a pause, in a serious voice] You really do underestimate yourself, you know.
Me: [struggling gamely on, cheerily] That doesn't have to be a bad thing.
Her: [still serious] No, but you can take it too far.
So, yes. Having to look further for my validation at work these days. To, you know, work around my underestimation problem. *grin*. Luckily I have BettyBetty for immediate validation. "God, she's crap," says BettyBetty. And so say all of us. 8)
February 06, 2005
The Kleptones
The Kleptones do this very cool thing where they take music and combine it with other music to form music that some cool people call "mashups" but which record companies prefer to call "illegal".
The new album is called "From Detroit to J.A." and I'm probably missing many of the clever cross references between music styles, but I've still had it on almost continuously for the last few days. I think that at least some of it is a combination of Motown and synth-pop, for instance, "Close to My Girl" which is a very chirpy version of The Cure's "Close to Me" with the words from "My Girl" by The Temptations, but there are other things going on too. "From Detroit to J.A." is cooler than I've made it sound and you should go and get it before they get closed down. If you don't know already, you'll need to work out how to use BitTorrent, so check the info on the page.
I also completely recommend "A Night at the Hip Hopera". Some of the Kleptones' music is a bit of a mystery to me ("Yoshimi Battles the Hip Hop Robots" was not really my thing), but this album is very accessible, because everybody knows the Queen songs. And I do love their combination of Eminem and Queen: "Hi, my name is... Bicycle."
The new album is called "From Detroit to J.A." and I'm probably missing many of the clever cross references between music styles, but I've still had it on almost continuously for the last few days. I think that at least some of it is a combination of Motown and synth-pop, for instance, "Close to My Girl" which is a very chirpy version of The Cure's "Close to Me" with the words from "My Girl" by The Temptations, but there are other things going on too. "From Detroit to J.A." is cooler than I've made it sound and you should go and get it before they get closed down. If you don't know already, you'll need to work out how to use BitTorrent, so check the info on the page.
I also completely recommend "A Night at the Hip Hopera". Some of the Kleptones' music is a bit of a mystery to me ("Yoshimi Battles the Hip Hop Robots" was not really my thing), but this album is very accessible, because everybody knows the Queen songs. And I do love their combination of Eminem and Queen: "Hi, my name is... Bicycle."
February 05, 2005
Cool Free Blog and OSX Addons
So, if you're reading this on my blogspot page, you'll be able to see the little orange XML (with Feedburner) icon on the left. Feedburner is a free service that turns any feed (such as Blogger's default site feed (atom.xml)) into something more cross-platform compatible. It lets you see some simple stats on your feed's usage and use cute little icons like this one.
You'll also see a link to my del.icio.us account. Del.icio.us is free service that lets you collect and organise bookmarks. My list is fairly short at the moment, mainly because I haven't decided whether to use it for my own use (thus, put everything in there, with very few notes) or as a recommendation list for you guys (thus, put cool things in there and annotate them). My new del.icio.us links are also part of my Feedburner feed.
I'll be getting a Flickr account shortly for hosting photos.
I'm using NewsGator free online RSS Reader to organise the feeds I read. It's working okay, but the interface is a bit clunky. I'm using SharpReader at work, and I do really like that interface. Please let me know if you've found Reader software on OSX that doesn't suck.
Which neatly segues into: QuickSilver. This is a tiny, one-use program that Rocks Beyond Telling. It's activated by Ctrl-Space and then you just type some or all of the letters in the item that you want to use, hit return for the default option, or right arrow to get a list of other actions. The power is in the range of "items" that it automatically locates. This list includes all the programs you have installed. So, if I want to launch something obscure like my ADSL software, I can do it with four keystrokes - much faster than navigating with the mouse. It also lists all your bookmarks. And it remembers which items you use (and how you got there), and guesses these first. Hide Others (which I use often, and which is often not accessible through a keyboard command) is now only Ctrl-Space H I in every single application. QuickSilver is almost invisible software, and I adore it.
My other cool tiny app d'jour is Notational Velocity. All it does is take notes, but the interface is so minimal and tiny that it's a pleasure to use. Again, mouse-free operation means that it's incredibly fast to use. Notes are encrypted and saved automatically. I'm using it to track to-do lists like downloading episodes out of sequence.
You'll also see a link to my del.icio.us account. Del.icio.us is free service that lets you collect and organise bookmarks. My list is fairly short at the moment, mainly because I haven't decided whether to use it for my own use (thus, put everything in there, with very few notes) or as a recommendation list for you guys (thus, put cool things in there and annotate them). My new del.icio.us links are also part of my Feedburner feed.
I'll be getting a Flickr account shortly for hosting photos.
I'm using NewsGator free online RSS Reader to organise the feeds I read. It's working okay, but the interface is a bit clunky. I'm using SharpReader at work, and I do really like that interface. Please let me know if you've found Reader software on OSX that doesn't suck.
Which neatly segues into: QuickSilver. This is a tiny, one-use program that Rocks Beyond Telling. It's activated by Ctrl-Space and then you just type some or all of the letters in the item that you want to use, hit return for the default option, or right arrow to get a list of other actions. The power is in the range of "items" that it automatically locates. This list includes all the programs you have installed. So, if I want to launch something obscure like my ADSL software, I can do it with four keystrokes - much faster than navigating with the mouse. It also lists all your bookmarks. And it remembers which items you use (and how you got there), and guesses these first. Hide Others (which I use often, and which is often not accessible through a keyboard command) is now only Ctrl-Space H I in every single application. QuickSilver is almost invisible software, and I adore it.
My other cool tiny app d'jour is Notational Velocity. All it does is take notes, but the interface is so minimal and tiny that it's a pleasure to use. Again, mouse-free operation means that it's incredibly fast to use. Notes are encrypted and saved automatically. I'm using it to track to-do lists like downloading episodes out of sequence.
February 04, 2005
First Post
Since Rob specifically said that he wanted to know more about my [insert blog title]... Behold!
I passed the first of three exams to become a Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD) today. I feel kinda... dirty.
Apparently anyone who can pass even one exam gets to call themselves a Microsoft CertifiedProstitute Professional. I'll have to resign myself to no longer being able to boast complete ignorance of the Operating System of the Evil Empire. I liked being ignorant. I liked my Maccier than Thou moral high ground. But now I officially have A Clue when it comes to programming The Popular OS. (Specifically, programming web applications in VB.NET, for those of you who know what this means.)
The exam was accomplished with my usual hyperanxiety and high marks. I got 848 when 700 was required to pass. The best bit is the giant Fuck You to our training guy. (He's a knob, more on this topic follows.)
He tried to convince both me and my colleague BettyBetty that we would fail. He tried very very hard to convince us that we should lower our expectations, and even that we should not tell anyone when we were sitting the exam so we would not be shamed when we failed. Presumably his reasoning was that if he failed his first few Microsoft exams, then people like us...
Well, ner. We didn't fail. BettyBetty only just passed, but she did pass, so blow it out your Evil Empire, asshat.
Also: all blogs have RSS feeds by default. The feed is at http://[yourblogname].blogspot.com/atom.xml I'll hook up Dave and Chris and Rob (but not ted, I think...?) and then I won't have to remember anyone's URLs. Huzzah!
I'm currently investigating RSS for use at work (go, forward technology Linda, fight and do miracles), so I suppose I could talk a little about that next time. In a radical break from blog tradition, other topics of conversation may include: Cats Do the Wacky, Oh How My Job Pisses Me Off, I Just Finished This Book You Should Read, My ADSL Brings All the Anime to the Yard. (Sorry, Dave.)
Oh, and just as a test: 今日はすごく寒かったです 雪が山で降っていました (Kyou wa sugoku samukatta desu. Yuki ga yama de futte imashita.) Today was really cold. It snowed in the mountains.
I will occasionally be speaking in Japanese, and I will definitely be making mistakes. Please please let me know when I do. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.
I passed the first of three exams to become a Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD) today. I feel kinda... dirty.
Apparently anyone who can pass even one exam gets to call themselves a Microsoft Certified
The exam was accomplished with my usual hyperanxiety and high marks. I got 848 when 700 was required to pass. The best bit is the giant Fuck You to our training guy. (He's a knob, more on this topic follows.)
He tried to convince both me and my colleague BettyBetty that we would fail. He tried very very hard to convince us that we should lower our expectations, and even that we should not tell anyone when we were sitting the exam so we would not be shamed when we failed. Presumably his reasoning was that if he failed his first few Microsoft exams, then people like us...
Well, ner. We didn't fail. BettyBetty only just passed, but she did pass, so blow it out your Evil Empire, asshat.
Also: all blogs have RSS feeds by default. The feed is at http://[yourblogname].blogspot.com/atom.xml I'll hook up Dave and Chris and Rob (but not ted, I think...?) and then I won't have to remember anyone's URLs. Huzzah!
I'm currently investigating RSS for use at work (go, forward technology Linda, fight and do miracles), so I suppose I could talk a little about that next time. In a radical break from blog tradition, other topics of conversation may include: Cats Do the Wacky, Oh How My Job Pisses Me Off, I Just Finished This Book You Should Read, My ADSL Brings All the Anime to the Yard. (Sorry, Dave.)
Oh, and just as a test: 今日はすごく寒かったです 雪が山で降っていました (Kyou wa sugoku samukatta desu. Yuki ga yama de futte imashita.) Today was really cold. It snowed in the mountains.
I will occasionally be speaking in Japanese, and I will definitely be making mistakes. Please please let me know when I do. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.
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