Posted: Mon 20 April, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Thoughts, Work-related |
So this week in the office I’ve got no work lined up – and nothing for the next few, either.
It’s all a bit weird – at the interviews I was told there was plenty to be getting on with, but now the most recent project has finished, it seems there’s nothing for a while – so I’m sat here twiddling my thumbs a bit.
Guess this is as good a time as any to start looking for new contracts…
Posted: Fri 17 April, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related, Writing |
It’s obviously about to be one of those times where life gets expensive again as things go wrong.
First, there’s the car. Still no word on what needs doing, how much it’ll cost, or when I’ll get it back.
Second, the laptop is definitely getting to be on it’s last legs. The bottom row of keys is getting very tempramental – who knew N was such a used key on my keyboard? – so I may have to go looking at a replacement at some point soon. Joy of joys.
In fairness, I’ve had the laptop for nearly three years, and in that time it’s had a hard life. It’s travelled in my backpack on a regular basis, gets used all the time at home, and is generally a bit of a workhorse. I cracked the case about 18 months ago, which makes CD/DVD use a bit of a challenge (and ejection of said disc even more so) but that wasn’t enough to need a change.
However, a broken/breaking keyboard is rather more relevant – I can’t use it properly if the keyboard’s on the way out. Typing is the main thing I do on the damn thing, in fact.
So I’ll give it a cleanout over the weekend, see if a hoover and/or air-blast will help, but I know it’s on the way out. I’m just prolonging the inevitable, really…
Posted: Thu 9 April, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Work-related |
Here in the office, it’s a bloody ghost town today. Obviously the majority of the people here have decided to take extra days around Easter – and why not? I will be next week – but wow, it’s dead.
As a result, my motivation is less than zero, and there’s not even anyone around to tell me what I should be doing.
*sigh*
Posted: Wed 8 April, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Own Business, Web Development, Work-related |
Currently, I’m working on a small e-learning project which is absolutely killing me mentally.
The work itself is OK, and the ideas behind it are quite cool. However, the people in charge of the project have put together the entire set of e-learning tests in PowerPoint (AKA The Software of the Devil), with one screenshot per PowerPoint Slide. All told there’s nearly 200 of these – and they’re not necessarily in order.
Now the order doesn’t matter too much – all this stuff is going into a database, and that’ll handle the question order just fine whether or not it’s out of order. However, having them correctly grouped does make it easier during the transfer to process them out of SatanWare into anything remotely usable.
As it is – and this could be because I’m not au fait with Powerpoint, so there may be some esoteric export function or somesuch that would’ve made life easier – I’ve had to go through the following process…
Phase One
- Select PowerPoint slide.
- Copy Image to clipboard
- Go to Image Software of Choice (in this case Fireworks, but Photoshop would’ve worked too)
- Create new blank image
- Paste clipboard-copy of image into new image
- Save new image as filename.jpg.
- Close new image.
- Repeat 200 times.
Phase Two
- Open each new image one by one in Photoshop/Fireworks (I could do it in batches, but again, one-by-one allows for consistency/sanity)
- Add four new layers for answer options (A,B,C,D) and add a pretty arrow pointing to a possible answer for each one.
- Make sure that the letter for the correct answer goes to the correct answer
- Save new image
- Close new image
- Repeat 200 times.
In short, it’s utterly soul-destroying. I’ll just be glad to get it over and done with.
Posted: Sun 5 April, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Own Business, Photography, Writing |
Back in November, I made a more basic list of what the plans would be for 2008/9 on the Five Year Plan.
I’m now halfway through – both the 2008/9 year, and the Plan itself. Which also means that in 2½ years time from today, I’ll be 40. Shite.
Anyway, here’s the list from November, along with progress comments.
- Sort out the mortgage renewal along with Herself (March/April)
- Write and Launch the main site ideas that are in my head at the moment, and see how they do
- Daily Word Challenge : launched
- Creativity Merger Site : done
- Two Three other primary sites : under development
- Promote one of the other sites I’ve done, which has a big dollop of potential – probably going to sack this one off
- Complete the NCFE Photography qualification/course – ongoing, 2/3s of the way through now
- Redesign my photography site – considering a significant change of theme on this one
- Promote the photography and site more – working on it
- Write at least one more big piece to get it out of my head at last – getting there
- Possibly redesign D4D™ a bit – I know, I’ve been talking about it now for years
Oh yeah, and…
- Lose some weight, as my plans for doing so in 2008 have emphatically failed – primarily due to zero motivation to do so, but also due to life over-riding gym etc. Ahem, yes, well, absolutely bugger-all done on this one.
Posted: Fri 3 April, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Weirdness, Work-related |
You know, in the six months I’ve been in the current workplace, there hasn’t been one day where the internet connection and/or network have stayed up all day without needing to be re-started by the IT department.
Every bloody sodding day, at some random point, the connections die. Most of the time it’s the proxy server they’re using, so it “just” needs a service restarting. But not once has anybody said “You know, this is effing ridiculous – let’s look at the logs and see what’s breaking, so we can fix it or upgrade it”
In fact, no-one seems to care at all. It’s just another of those things that always happens, always has happened, and always will happen.
Posted: Tue 31 March, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Charm School, Work-related |
Well, all told the work day was a total fuck-knuckle. Abso-pigging-lutely pointless.
By my reckoning, I actually worked for 30 minutes today – at most.
I know, I shouldn’t complain at getting paid to do chuff-all (or very close to chuff-all, anyway) but it does my head in – I far prefer to be busy, rather than be bored and doing feck all.
I need to find something new to do, that’s for sure.