Posted: Wed 10 August, 2005 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Thoughts, Work-related |
*shudder* Well, I’ve finally been inducted into the world of MSN Messenger. Up ’til now I’ve never had to use it, and always been able to avoid needing it. Now, though – well, some of the people in work use it, and as they’re in the US, it’s kind of handy I suppose.
But I might just pull out of MSN, and go with something like Trillian where I can use it to handle multiple versions of IM message, instead of having to run the shitefest that is known as MSN…
Posted: Mon 8 August, 2005 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Work-related |
Today has been – to be frank – shit. As most people will already know, diplomacy has never been my strong point, and it’s even less my strong-point when it comes to international bullshit.
The issue today has been one of our sites, which recently migrated from phpNuke to Mambo, which is an unholy piece of user-hostile shitpot crap that I’m rapidly learning to loathe. In fact it’s already been noted in the office that I think it’s a hunk of shit, and I can’t deny, I’m not keeping that opinion quiet. I use it because I have to – but I suspect that there’d be more functionality in a two legged leprosy-ridden pig with swine erysipelas.
The company that did this migration for us are based out in Bangalore, or Delhi, or some fucking out-sourcing hellhole. Which means they’re six hours ahead of us, time-wise. This makes problem solving into something of a challenge. What makes it more interesting still is that the servers we use are hosted in New York, and the person who maintains them is in LA. So the servers are something like 6 hours behind us, timewise, and the guy in LA is two hours or so behind that.
Today’s problems have meant that I’m trying to get the guys in Bangalore to fix a problem, which then comes to me to be uploaded (the paranoid berk in LA won’t give them access to the servers) on to the dev server, and when we’ve tested it, to then go on to the live server. In theory this shouldn’t be a problem, as I’ve got (in theory, remember) all the necessary passwords in order to SCP (not FTP, that’s not secure) the files across to the dev server, and then SSH over to the live server so that it can all go live.
Except that El Paranoid Berk has changed the passwords and permissions so that I can’t do that. So I have to contact him, wait ’til he wakes up and/or can be bothered, and get him to sort it out.
All told, today I’m covering something like 14 different time zones, three continents, and three people, all of whom have different ideas on how this shit should work. Which makes it an Intercontinental Ballistic Motherfucker of a day.
Posted: Fri 5 August, 2005 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Thoughts |
Yesterday I suddenly realised I wasn’t as organised as usual, and didn’t have the change necessary for buying my train ticket. (All due to the bloody carpet fitter insisting on being paid cash rather than cheque, but that’s another story entirely) Anyway, it made me think about technology that would actually be useful – in this instance mPay, or mobile (or in fact micro, depending on who you believe) payments.
The basic idea is that you have an extra chip in your mobile phone that is basically a payment system, and can either be used in a similar way to a Switch/Maestro card, where money comes directly from your bank account, or alternatively you can have these small amounts added to your monthly phone bill. The system is in use in Japan already as part of the DoCoMo network where it’s known as iMode (I wonder if Apple will sue for that brandname?) and seems to be taking off.
I know it would be a nightmare to implement at first, as there’d be one hell of a lot of infrastructure to put in place. Then again, a similar (although slightly more low-tech) method is already being used for car-parking in Edinburgh, so maybe there’s hope for the concept yet?
Posted: Thu 4 August, 2005 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: D4D™, Geeky, Work-related |
One thing that’s interesting with my work at Groovy Group (I can’t think of anything better for now, so that’ll do as a name) is that in many ways I don’t really seem to have a defined role at all.
Yes, I’m certainly the person developing all the website stuff and so on, and that’s what I primarily do. But at the same time I also regularly get assigned system administrator stuff, design stuff, (which is a bit of a problem, as I’m emphatically not a designer!) and get asked deeply geeky and technical questions by the rest of the staff, including the CTO – in fact, one could probably say that I’ve got some form of input in most of the company activities. In addition to all that, I seem to be the one who helps out when other people need it, and also the one who does the support-type work. (fixing connections, figuring what’s wrong with the network, that kind of thing) Oh, and in addition I still get to write d4d™, plus figure out a lot of the concepts behind the website stuff.
I’m not complaining – in fact, it suits me really well – but it just seems a bit odd when most people have a fairly well-defined position that I’m the one that seems to cover all the bits not listed in the detailed descriptions. Still, it certainly makes for a varied day!
Posted: Mon 1 August, 2005 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: D4D™, Geeky, Work-related |
Swearwords galore are emanating from the area around my desk at the moment. The new CMS that the site is using is Mambo, an Open Source thing that I’d come across about 18 months ago, but not fully used. The reason I didn’t bother using it properly back then is because it was – to be frank – an utter cunt to set up, and about as instinctive as repeatedly kicking a brick wall while barefoot. In fact, I wrote this and this about it at the time.
So, the new place (and I really must think up a name for them sometime) has a site that’s been around for a while running on PHPNuke which they’ve decided should be *cough* “upgraded” to run on Mambo. They hired a company to do it (thank God – I’d have murdered by now) who seem to know their way round the software – well, someone has to, I guess. And now it’s down to me to sort out the final teething problems, along with things like file uploads and the like.
And I have to say, even when using it as a system that’s been set up by people who know what they’re doing, it’s still an utter piece of shite. It’s not instinctive, it’s pretty much user-hostile, and doesn’t follow a logical workflow for things like editing or uploading documents.
In short, it’s junk. Regardless of the fact it appears to be used by a lot of people, and the fact that when running it apparently runs just fine. But when you’re adding in content, or trying to edit stuff, it’s junk. Pure and simple. I’m seriously bloody glad I went with WP instead of it.
Posted: Sat 30 July, 2005 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Thoughts |
It’s just occurred to me, while dong some online shopping that I actually know the number to my Switch (sorry, Maestro) card off by heart. I don’t even need to take the thing out of my wallet when I’m doing online purchases.
Does this mean that a) I need to get out more, b) I really should do less online shopping or c) I’m really rather sad with the things I can remember ?
Posted: Fri 29 July, 2005 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky |
Yet again, my cordless mouse battery is reporting that it’s flatter than a hamster hit by a juggernaut. I don’t know why this time, as it was definitely left in the cradle overnight to recharge. Cordless mice and keyboards are a pain in the arse – it’s lucky I’m OK at navigating round most things on the computer by using keyboard shortcuts.
I guess that shows I’m quite a sad old techie too. But ah well, things could be worse.
However, it may be obvious, but I have to say that trying to do stuff in Photoshop without a mouse is an absolute pain in the knackers. This has been my learning experience for the day.