Wireless and BT

Posted: Mon 18 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Work-related | Leave a comment »

While I’ve been figuring out what I’m going to be doing while I’m based in Cambridge, I’ve been checking out wi-fi access, what it’ll cost, and all that kind of gubbins. I know that the place I’m staying won’t have access, so it’s going to be relevant for evenings and so on. Looking around, there’s plenty of access points, which will make life a lot easier.

At the same time I was also trying to figure out something to do with my BT Broadband account, and checked out the broadband homepage – and bloody hell! Turns out I get 250 minutes a month of wi-fi access along with my BT Broadband account. Well OK, it’s actually a voucher for something like 3,000 minutes – which they reckon works out at 250 minutes per month for the length of my BT Broadband account. But either way, it saves me a fair chunk of money initially. I’ll probably use it up while I’m in Cambridge, but even then I can sort out another 500minutes per month for £5, which still isn’t bad.

The stumbling block, though, was that it was supposed to be activated by an email, which BT were going to send me within 14 days of starting the broadband account. Which was in – um – July. So they hadn’t sent the email, and thus began a spate of phone calls. First to BT customer services, which seemed to end up in India, and a person who really didn’t get the concept of “BT Openzone” vs. “BT Communicator”. And then gave me a number that didn’t exist for some other department in BT. I despair.

Then a call to some other department, who were actually almost semi-helpful. They gave me the number for the Broadband bunch, who then gave me the number for BT Openzone. BT Openzone then insisted that I should talk to BT Broadband – but at least they put me through to the person they’d decided was the right one. It still took another ten minutes for the numpty person at the other end to read all the instructions on their system, still didn’t find anything, and had to go and speak to a supervisor. And then put me through to yet another person, but they eventually did get it sorted, sent the email out again, and lo, I’ve now got the necessary voucher. Took its bloody time, but got there in the end.

So now I just have to wait ’til next week and see how the entire wi-fi thing goes. Should be fun.

Organised

Posted: Mon 18 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Travel | Leave a comment »

Ye Gods, this domestic lark can be a bit worrying sometimes.

I’ve just booked a holiday week for us. In March next year. That’s just scary, planning stuff for six months time.

I know, maybe one day I’ll grow up enough that planning six months ahead doesn’t faze me, but for now, well, live with it.

To Do

Posted: Mon 18 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Thoughts, Travel, Work-related | Leave a comment »

So – a checklist of things I need to do in preparation for the new job…

  • New laptop
    • Install Office/OpenOffice
    • Install Outlook / Thunderbird
    • Install text editors
    • Move some music over
    • Copy addressbook etc.
    • Web browsers + bookmarks etc.
  • Book train tickets
  • Find accomodation
  • Check out some of the wireless access places
    • Research wireless places
    • Subscribe to one of the services?
    • Find good places to work from
  • Check out good food places ( and add them to WheresGood )
  • Pack bag for week – remember phone charger, laptop charger, etc. etc.
  • Look at courses, further education etc. – may have to wait ’til I’m there
  • Join library – may have to wait ’til I’m there

And I’m sure there’s other stuff I still need to do too – it’s just that right now I can’t remember what.

Wanker

Posted: Sun 17 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Green, Sweary, Thinking About..., Thoughts | 3 Comments »

I wrote about this fucking idiot before. A man “addicted” to branded clothes, he’s now going to burn all his branded possessions, and then write a book about his experiences of trying to live brand-free.

What an utter, utter cunt.

There are plenty of ways that this tosser could use to get rid of these items instead of burning them. He could give them away to charty shops. He could sell them off to one of the companies that re-sell second-hand clothes, particularly those with designer labels. Hell, he could just go and shove them all in a clothing recycling bin.

But no, this fucker has to make a show of it, so he’s going to burn them. Not content with being a shallow-minded cunt in the first place, he’s now tagged himself as an egotistical self-centred cunt who’s still shallow-minded as well.

Tosser.

Liquor

Posted: Sun 17 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: General, Reviews(ish) | Leave a comment »

Over the last few days, I’ve been re-reading a trilogy by Poppy Z Brite, based around two chefs and their restaurant, “Liquor”.

Starting off with the eponymous “Liquor“, followed on by “Prime“, and most recently “Soul Kitchen“, the series so far has turned into one of my favourite reads.

They’re emphatically not high-art, and not overly intellectually stimulating, but they make for a good read. Wholeheartedly recommended.

Bureaucracy

Posted: Sat 16 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Sweary, Travel | Leave a comment »

Because of the work I’ll be doing in Cambridge, and the fact I’m going to be there from Monday-Friday for at least the next three to six months, I was looking at joining the library in Cambridge, rather than lugging books around all the time. Saves weight, time, and money. So I check out the page on the local authority’s website about the requirements for joining the library. OK, groovy.

You can join the library at any age if you:

  • are a permanent resident of Cambridgeshire
  • work or study in Cambridgeshire
  • are visiting Cambridgeshire

Great, I’ll be working there, so that’s cool – and I fill in the online form to get it sorted before I get up there. Blah blah, Section Two “For those not living permanently in Cambridgeshire” – so is this address the same as my permanent one, or for where I’ll be staying? Not much point being the latter, as it’s only a B&B…
Get a response back from the library service…

Dear [Lyle]
Thank you for your application to join Cambridgeshire Libraries
I regret to inform you that we cannot process your request owing to the fact that you are not resident in Cambridgeshire or one of our adjoining counties
I refer you to our web page “can anyone join the library?”

No shit, that’s why I filled in the fucking section called “for those not living permanently in Cambridgeshire”.

Needless to say, I’ve sent back a snotty reply explaining this. Should be fun to see the response…

WishLists

Posted: Sat 16 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised | 3 Comments »

Now this is a good idea – GiftTagging.com. A central repository (or “one stop shop”, if you prefer) where you can keep all your different wishlists – Amazon, Jessops, etc. etc., and people can look in just one place and see all the things you want.

Definitely worth a try, I reckon. So here’s mine, although I’ll also probably be editing that list in the next week or so.

And Done

Posted: Fri 15 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Yep, that’s it, I’m done with having to go to London. Well, unless something horrible goes wrong, and I have to go in one day next week. But the odds are that I won’t. I got lot of stuff done today that involved blocking Arsehole Boss’s access to all the relevant sites – ain’t it annoying when you try to log on, and your password’s changed? *grin*

I should point out that all my activities today were at the behest of the Ultimate Boss, and the Board. Supposedly AB is up for a disciplinary meeting on Tuesday, and should be getting fired on that day. So he outlasted me by a couple of days. But to be honest I don’t care. I’m best off out of the place – I know, I’ve been saying that for a long time now, but from today it’s real. I’m out, and they won’t get me back.

It’s a good, good feeling – and even more so when fuelled by three pints of Staropramen at lunchtime too.

Finale

Posted: Fri 15 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Yes, my final day in London, and my final day of officially working for Arsehole Boss. It’s a day I’ve been looking forward to for quite a while now, and finally it’s upon us.

Actually, there’s really not all that much point in me being here. But it does allow me to hand over anything important, and let people know passwords etc. Although it does look like I’m actually going to be kept in the loop for a while on some of the stuff – which I don’t mind at all – and possibly get called on if things go tits up. The reason? Because they’ve realised that there’s no-one else in the company who knows how to do one hell of a lot of the things that I’ve been doing. Which just makes things all the more amusing.

One nice revelation, though. They’re also finally clicking on to the fact that Arsehole Boss doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about for a good 99% of the time. And the other 1% is just stuff he’s heard along the way and repackaged to make it sound original. They’ve currently suspended him for being an utter cock (not actually the technical reason – that’s about changing system passwords and user roles etc. so that he was the only person with access to the company sites etc.) and so there’s still a good chance that he’s going to be out on his ear too.

But I don’t care any more. I’m out of the business, and that suits me just fine.

Apologetic

Posted: Fri 15 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, General, Travel | 1 Comment »

One thing that brightened my day this week – I got a full and unreserved apology from the council for the utter fuckup that was made of the recruitment process.

I sent off a letter last Friday to the chief executive of the council, and copied in the head of HR, and the guy I’d been dealing with at the agency. The reply came back within the week, and was exceptionally apologetic, explaining that the guy who had caused the problem has been off sick, and has been replaced by a new interim Head of IT, and that the entire process is now under investigation within the council.

So it sounds like Mr Sensitive is in for a major kicking at the hands of the HR department, and frankly it won’t be anything he doesn’t deserve. And because of the letter, the agency are now going to send an invoice to the council for their recruitment costs, as they got the right person, and got the job offered, but then everything at the council turned to ratshit. Which ain’t the agency’s problem, and as such they might as well see whether they can get anything out of it.

So, a bollocking, an apology, and an agency that’s very happy with me even though I’m not currently working for them. Can’t be bad!

Twunts

Posted: Thu 14 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised | Leave a comment »

Bloody estate agents. I realise that they’ve been pretty good for us, what with selling the house in four days and so on but all the same, as a species they’re still utter twunts. Even the ones we sold the house with.

Despite saying we didn’t want a sign outside, and despite the place selling so fast that they didn’t even get a chance to put the place in the paper, we came home to find that they’d shoved up a “Sold” sign while we were at work. This wouldn’t have been so bad, except that not all the nearby neighbours knew we were selling the place, and so we’ve been deluged with questions about where we’re going, and what the new people will be like.

And then yesterday – bearing in mind there’s a bloody big bright yellow sign with the words “SOLD subject to contract” on it – I get home to find that another estate agents has dropped a card through the door, saying that they have buyers for this house. I’m sorry, but which part of “SOLD” did the fuckwit twunts not understand?

In fact, that latter bit would make sure that even if the house sale did fall through, I wouldn’t go to that particular estate agents…

e-Commerce

Posted: Thu 14 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Getting Organised, Weirdness | Leave a comment »

Over the last few days, the iTunes music store has been annoying me. OK, I know I’ve got some fairly obscure tastes on occasion, but even so, when looking for things like “Leonard Cohen” the list is missing some fairly relevant stuff. The last couple of albums, for instance. Let alone some of the older stuff – and finding the album I particularly wanted, which is a collection of cover versions of his stuff, well, that’s just never going to happen.

And I can’t find anything on iTunes for a bundle of other bands – OK, some of them are old now, but isn’t that what “The Long Tail” was always supposed to be about? But no, nothing on there for Timbuk3, The Pale, or a couple of others.

Anyway, back to Leonard Cohen, and in fact it’s easier to go back and find the exact album on Amazon, and add it to the basket.

However, Amazon’s not perfect either. I was also looking for an A-Z map of Cambridge, for obvious reasons. But hang on – a £1.50 sourcing fee? What the hell? And up to 14 days for delivery? Fuck off. In that case it’s far easier to go direct to the company and order it direct. No sourcing fee. No postage. A flat £3.50. And I’ll get it by Monday. Perfect.

Laptop

Posted: Wed 13 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Getting Organised, Work-related | Leave a comment »

The new laptop? It’s a Dell Inspiron 640m. Nothing special, nothing cutting edge (well, except for the fact it’s got a Centrino Duo™ Dual Core processor, which is pretty new) but it’s fairly lightweight, has a decent 14″ screen, and what looks to be about 7 hours of battery life, which is what I wanted.

When all’s said and done, the laptop will be used primarily while I’m travelling and/or away from home, so the battery life was the driving factor more than anything. It’s definitely got the oomp and processing power too, along with a very nice 1Gb of RAM, so it should do for the next couple of years at least.

I’ve spent the last couple of days putting on all the stuff I need on it, and now I’m pretty much sorted. Good, innit?

Quittin’ Time

Posted: Wed 13 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Work-related | 2 Comments »

I’m “working” from home for the next couple of days, and Friday is my last ever day in the office. I can’t believe that it’s all gone as well as it has. Well, in a way I’m not at all surprised, because I still believe that a major part of the motivation for the office move was to get rid of all the people who were based around Bracknell – so in that way I guess they were probably quite pleased for the scheme to have worked.

Really though I’m just pleased it’s gone so smoothly. In honesty I didn’t really expect it to do so – I was expecting a fight, particularly on whether I’d have to work my month’s notice or not, but instead it’s all come through easily.

So now I’ve got one more day left in the office – and even that is more about meeting some of the people from work for a few drinks at lunchtime, then crawling my way home.

I’m just looking forward to finishing. And then moving on to the new job in Cambridge. One day left of dealing with Arsehole Boss, and I’m done. I’ll be counting the minutes…

Season Seven

Posted: Wed 13 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic | Leave a comment »

Well, the final box set of West Wing is now in my possession. Season Seven. I’m kind of looking forward to seeing it, although it’s tempered with the knowledge that after this, no more. *sob*

So far, I’ve ended up not seeing any of Season Seven. So it’s going to be a job of seeing them all fairly soon. I’m looking forward to it. In a bittersweet way…

Off, Off and Away

Posted: Tue 12 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Getting Organised, Work-related | 1 Comment »

So, amazingly it all went OK.

A simple – and non-sweary – explanation of why my position with the company was now untenable, making clear references to a lot of policies that amount to nothing less than constructive dismissal, and referring to legal advice I’d taken over the last week, and bang, I’m done.

I come back into the office on Friday to sort out some final things. I’ve also been asked to do a couple of small things for the company over the next couple of weeks (although they depend on Arsehole Boss not being an Arsehole, so it’s not certain I’ll even have to do them) which is fine – it means I get paid for the entire of September, and then also get a month’s pay in lieu of notice, and a month’s pay as a severance deal.

All told, I come out of the entire thing Golden, and smelling of Roses.

Can’t be bad.

Expensive

Posted: Tue 12 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Getting Organised, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Yesterday was – how shall I put this – fucking expensive. Well, if I’m honest, the money had already been spent – it was just that yesterday turned out to be the day when it all arrived. So I kind of look at it that it’s only expensive once you’ve received it. Strange, but true.

So anyway, last week I’d ordered some new Cat® boots through Schuh, and because of going back into the contracting game, it was decided that a new laptop was on the cards, the old Libretto now being a) fucking noisy, b) awesomely slow, and c) just not really up to scratch. Still sexy as fuck, and with great battery life, etc., but well, just not up to the job and definitely not up to the constant travelling. In fairness, it’s five (if not six) years old, and has served me damn well in that time. But still, it was time for an upgrade.

Both items arrived yesterday, so that’s near enough £1000 of stuff that’s come through the door today. When you take into account the other odds and sods that arrived for Herself as well, we’re well over that mark. And there’s still another delivery due, and I know Amazon have also sent out the Season 7 box set of West Wing too, although that probably won’t arrive ’til today. Cunts.

But it did mean that I could spend yesterday “working from home” and setting up the new laptop with all the standard stuff I need. And when it comes to setting up Firefox on a new computer now, may I take this opportunity to heartily recommend Google’s “browser sync” extension for Firefox which makes the entire process seriously painless. Yeah, I know, it means that somewhere in Google’s servers there exists a complete and comprehensive list of all my bookmarks etc., but frankly, when it means migrating everything is a matter of two or three mouseclicks, I don’t care.

Google may be Evil, but it’s also Fucking Useful.

It’s all happening

Posted: Mon 11 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised | Leave a comment »

Well, three viewing on the house on Saturday, one at lunchtime today, and three from 4pm.

And now we’ve got two offers in on the place.

Looks like things are hapening…

9/11

Posted: Mon 11 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: General, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

So it’s five years since the events of 9/11, and the destruction of the World Trade Center. Blimey, doesn’t time fly?

I do still recall where I was when it happened – nothing special, just working in the Arndale Tower in Manchester. Which made it kind of noteworthy, with the paranoia that followed on from the events in New York. Being sat in a tower block in a city on that day was – well – interesting.

But that’s all I’m going to say on the subject. Everyone else is saying far more than I, and for once I don’t really have anything to add to the general babble.

So I won’t.

Walking Away

Posted: Mon 11 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Getting Organised, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Well, the time has come.

I’ve requested a meeting with the CEO of the company, and the main accounting guy, today, so I can sort out leaving. I haven’t actually said I’m leaving, but I’m sure they’ll figure it out for themselves between now and then.

I don’t yet know what time the meeting will be, but it’s going to be sometime today. And over the weekend, I got to write a resignation letter too. That was fun.

Of course, there have also been to be a couple of “wish I could send this” versions first. But the actual one is still quite fun, as it’s made ample use of phrases like “constructive dismissal”, “untenable position” and “having taken legal advice”.

UPDATED : Arse. Meeting postponed ’til tomorrow. Still, it’ll be fun when it happens. And of course a celebratory D4D™ post will be added when it’s happened.

New Toys

Posted: Mon 11 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Geeky, Photography | Leave a comment »

On Friday, I got the Pclix that I’d ordered a couple of weeks ago. It’s a little device that is going to take some getting used to, but I think it’s certainly going to be interesting in the mean time.

One thing I really liked about all the packaging that came with the Pclix is that the entire thing is recyclable – all the cardboard and so on – and they don’t supply a printed manual. Instead, it comes on a CD – which I have no problem with. It saves paper, and means I can read the thing any old time. Fine. Hell, I can even copy it over to my phone, and read it from there.

The other really cool thing, though, is the case the CD comes in. I’d not seen them before, but it’s a VarioPac ‘trigger’ case, which holds the CD securely, but doesn’t “open” as such. Instead there’s a trigger to push the CD out of the case, and look ma! No hands! Really very, very smart. I may just make some use of them myself…

ImageKind

Posted: Sun 10 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Photography | Leave a comment »

Regular (and observant) readers will have noticed a new button over there on the right, which leads to ImageKind, and my gallery there.

ImageKind is an on-line gallery and shop where you can upload images, and then sell them using “print-on-demand”, as well as having them mounted, framed, and generally looking absolutely top-bollock. It’s an interesting idea, and I now just wish I could remember who it was who mentioned it first. It might’ve been Meg, or it might’ve been Gordon. Or, in fact, it might’ve been someone else entirely. All I know is someone mentioned it a few weeks ago, and I thought I’d register myself.

Of course, it’s taken another month for me to sort out the first batch of images I want to put up there, but the ones I’ve now uploaded are ones I’m very pleased with – and in fact there’s a couple on there that’re already up on our walls anyway – so it’ll be interesting to see whether anyone else likes them, and particularly likes them enough to buy…

But anyway, yes, this is my first baby-step towards looking into whether I can actually sell any of my photos or not. There’s a lot more steps still to be taken, but I figure this is a pretty good first one.

Walking

Posted: Sat 9 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | Leave a comment »

Of course, with the house now on the market, and people coming round to view it, Hound thinks it’s Christmas.

Every time someone has come round for a viewing, she gets taken out for a walk. So far as she’s concerned, it’s Heaven.

Viewings

Posted: Sat 9 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised | Leave a comment »

So, the house has been on the market for less than a day, and already we’ve got three viewings today, and one on Monday.

Bloody hell.

Travelling to Work

Posted: Fri 8 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Getting Organised, Travel, Work-related | 2 Comments »

Bleh. I’ve just been looking at the ways I’m going to be getting to the new job in Cambridge, and all I can say is “Bleh”.

Because of the way we’re doing things initially, I’m going to be travelling up to Cambridge on the Monday morning, staying there ’til Friday, then coming home for the weekend. Luckily, the new job is very cool and understanding about that kind of thing, and they’ve no problem with it. Besides, they know I’m going to be working more than 9-5 on the days when I am there, as there’s no constraint on me having to be back home, etc. etc.

Anyway, looks like I’m going to be awake horrifically early on a Monday morning, as I’m going to be on a 7am train in order to get to Cambridge for about 10am. Blech.

And, of course, Hound will need to be taken out before I get the chance to have anything respectable like breakfast or owt. That’s the joys of setting up a routine – she then doesn’t understand that just because I’m awake earlier, the routine should change too. So it’ll be getting up, taking her out, then having breakfast before getting to the station. *shudder

Ah well. Could be worse. And at least I’ll be getting paid back the £66 it’ll cost me…

It’s All Happening

Posted: Fri 8 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised | Leave a comment »

So, today the estate agents come round to take photos of the house.

It’s all coming together, and starting to happen…

Success 2

Posted: Thu 7 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Travel, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Oh, and in Other News, Herself has now also been offered a job up Norfolk way. Slightly more than she’s on now, and a place she seems happy with.

So it’s all coming together very successfully now. And about bloody time too!

Umbrella

Posted: Thu 7 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Work-related | 3 Comments »

Well, another step along the path to the new job has been taken.

Because it’s a contract, rather than being a “proper” job, I need to either have my own company, or go through another company that employs contractors, known as an umbrella company. (in this case I’ll be using one called Parasol) Slightly more complex in some ways (it takes a bit more time to get paid, and sorting out the contract etc.) it also makes life a shitload easier in many others. So much easier, in fact, that when I looked through all the guff this time, it made me think “I’ve been going so wrong in previous times“.

The contract scenario is a bit of a ‘mare, though. If I had my own company, it would be directly between the agency I’m working through and my company. However, with the umbrella company setup, there’s a contract between the client and the agency, one between the agency and the umbrella company, and then one between me and the umbrella company. Still, that should all be stuff I don’t really need to care about, thank god.

On the other side of the coin, though, the payback is fantastic. Yes, it costs me a small amount to use the umbrella company. (roughly £55 per month, although with tax relief that comes down to £44) but at the same time I get all my expenses back. OK, I have to provide receipts, but that’s no different to anywhere else, really.

But it means that while I’m still living in Berkshire and travelling up to Cambridge to work, I’ll be paid back my travel expenses, my hotel accommodation (up to about £70 per night) and food costs up to about £21 per day. Frankly, that works out as a bloody good deal, particularly when you also consider that the daily rate is already higher than I’m getting paid now.

Yeah, sure, once we’ve moved to Norfolk the expenses will come down, but even then I can still claim all my travel back.

It also means I don’t have any hassle with my mates at Inland Revenue, because what I get paid already has tax and NI deducted by Parasol. I don’t have to worry about anything else except making sure I keep copies of all my receipts, just in case. It also means that we shouldn’t fall foul of all the crap regarding mortgages etc., as I’m not self-employed, but instead employed by Parasol.

In short, it’s a case of “What the hell was I thinking, having my own company? This is so much easier!“

Remembering

Posted: Wed 6 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Getting Organised, Own Business, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Ah, memories. This post on Waiter Rant has brought back lots of memories of idiot customers and the things they used to say, back when I was in that game.

Makes me even more surprised I’m still thinking about the possibility of going back to it…

Pointless

Posted: Wed 6 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Getting Organised, Work-related | 3 Comments »

I have to say, I love getting utterly pointless bits of post. Particularly when I’ve paid for them, in one way or another.

I’m not talking about junk mail, because that just gets ignored, shredded, and binned. Simple. I don’t particularly care about that – although we will be opting out of the Royal Mail’s junk mail service (email optout@royalmail.co.uk for more information) in order to reduce the amount of crap we do receive once we’ve moved. But no, the stuff I’m talking about is stuff from organisations and government groups that has absolutely no use in being sent, and just costs money.

Today’s fine example of this came from Inland Revenue. A statement of my account with the money-grabbing incompetent shit-for-brains jobsworth cock-knockers. Having finally sorted out the fucking about they did with me over the last three years (which reminds me, really must fill in that form this week and get it sent off) I’ve got a statement of account again.

Right at the top of it?

You have nothing to pay

Well, that’s just bloody brilliant, isn’t it? I know that already. You’ve told me twice already, and the next set of bullshit demands don’t come due ’til the end of the year (roughly). And what’s the point of sending out repeated statements saying I owe nothing?

Educated

Posted: Tue 5 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Charm School, D4D™ | 2 Comments »

Ah, I do like getting fanmail.

Today’s special is a comment on this post from a while back, about my Shuttle box.

you cunt fuck you and hope you die

Ah, how lovely. No punctuation, no grammar, no explanation, and no relation to anything within the post. Just some useless abuse from some limpdick flangebucket who isn’t even brave enough to leave his email address or a link. Bless.

Complaining

Posted: Tue 5 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Getting Organised, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Well, that’s the council told.

I’ve already spoken to the agency I was dealing with about the job, and they’ve been brilliant. In fact, he was pretty much expecting me to call with something similar, as I’d already said I was going to be looking for other jobs, but the nice bit of the conversation was

Well, when the contract in Cambridge comes to a close, give me a bell and we’ll see what we can do for you

Quite reassuring, considering that they could’ve been really snotty about the entire thing. But they’ve been frigged about by the council as well, so they don’t have a problem with the entire thing.

And now I’ve sent a letter to the chief executive of the council, copied it in to the head of HR and to the agency, and sent it off.

Should be interesting, seeing if there’s any response at all to it from the council.

Build the Hype

Posted: Tue 5 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: General, Music, Reviews(ish) | 1 Comment »

Have you heard the single by Lazyboy called “Underwear Goes Inside The Pants”?

It’s been released, and is currently sat at the low end of the 30s on the Top 40. We heard it in the car last night, and laughed ourselves silly.

In short, it’s brilliant. The lyrics go some way to explaining the appeal, but there’s more to it than that. It’s something different, it has a point, and says it well.

Ah, hell, just go to Itunes and look for “Lazyboy” or “Underwear” – it’ll come up in the list. It might be a novelty, but it’s well worth the 79p for the download.

Enjoy.

Jobs

Posted: Mon 4 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Work-related | Leave a comment »

So, following on from Friday’s news, there’s a whole bundle of things to be getting on with :

  • Tell council where to stuff it
  • Tell Arsehole Boss where to stuff it
  • Sort out temporary place to stay in Cambridge
  • Sort out umbrella company through which to handle contract, payment etc. – I decided that for the moment I just can’t be arsed with setting up my own company, bank account, etc. etc.
  • Sort out a start date
  • Figure out some of the more technical bits and pieces along the way

Yes, it’s a good job we’re off work this week – all of a sudden there’s a lot to do!

In addition, there’s also the small matters of :

  • Final clean-up of house, so that estate agents can come and take pics
  • Sort out estate agents
  • Swear (yet again) at Tesco Finance’s log-on procedure, which is a nightmare. Particularly because I can’t remember what password I chose – I’ve been through the registration process so many times, I’ve lost the will to live
  • Write a complaint letter to the chief exec at the council
  • Swear lots

And all the other stuff that’s coming along at a great rate of knots. Definitely a good week to have a holiday…

For now, I’m off to take back the library books.

Autumn Fair

Posted: Mon 4 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Own Business, Photography, Travel | Leave a comment »

Well, the Autumn Fair yesterday was pretty good. Knackering, and the usual NEC extortionate food charges etc., but still pretty good.

Herself was able to get some of the stuff she wanted, as well as a whole bundle of ideas, and I was able to sound out a few photography companies, and see what kind of stuff they were looking for. Additionally, I was able to check out a few others and realise the ones I didn’t want to work for, which can be just as useful when all’s said and done.

And the main thing I really need to do? (And should’ve thought of a long time ago, but never did) Build a website for my stuff, and market it from there. Doh!

Nice Timing

Posted: Sun 3 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Getting Organised, Travel, Work-related | Leave a comment »

One thing that’s even better than usual when it comes to this week is that, along with the confirmation of the job in Cambridge, I’m actually on holiday for the week.

We’re not planning on going anywhere particular, but it’s more about a) having a break from all the shit, and b) getting the house ready to go on the market. After all, with the job stuff and so on, and waiting for news from the jobs that Herself has interviewed for, it’s all coming together again.

Last week was particularly rough – with the news that the council were still fucking about, and that Arsehole Boss was looking likely to stay with the company for the forseeable future, it all got just a bit depressing and demoralised. We were both pissed off by it, because we’d got to a point where it all seemed like it was coming together, where the plans were happening, and then they were all falling apart again, and none of it was through any fault of our own. And whenever that happens, it sucks.

So yeah, having this week off has come at just about the perfect time, as it happens. It also means we get to spend some time figuring out just how everything will work out with regard to me doing this new job, and the necessary travel and domestic arrangements, as well as sorting out company stuff, payment details etc., and also telling the council (and the current job) where to stuff it.

All told, it should be a good week!

Brum

Posted: Sun 3 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Own Business, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Away again today, up in *cough* sunny Birmingham at the NEC for the Autumn Fair.

It could be a pretty long day, but it should be useful to both of us, as it’ll give Herself a chance to look at various jewellery suppliers etc., and also allow me to check out a whole bundle of art and photographic people, as well as checking out companies that need websites and the like.

There’s been a lot of ideas for us of late, so it’s going to be interesting to see whether we’ve got a chance with any/all of them.

I’m sure I’ll write more about it once we’re back – or more likely, on Monday.

Drivers

Posted: Sat 2 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Travel | Leave a comment »

(Note : In this post, I aim to use Anna’s Swearword of the day – Pisswit)

Yesterday, due to the vagaries of a) trains and b) traffic (having had the interview, I was waiting for Herself to drive down and meet me in Cambridge after her interview in Norwich finished) I had plenty of time to sit around and just people-watch. It’s something I haven’t had a great deal of time for of late (well, except on the commuter trains, of course) so I had a thoroughly fun, and very lazy, day following my interview, and just spent a couple of hours at Cambridge station, watching people, and drivers, and the weirdness that is the Cambridge station forecourt.

It’s really hard to describe the area at the front of the station. One thing’s for certain though – it was designed by a total pisswit who had no idea about human nature. First it can only be approached by one road, which is fairly narrow. This funnels all the traffic for the station : bikes, cars, taxis, buses, and delivery vehicles – all of it down one narrow road. Brilliant.

At the end of the road, there’s a lay-by for the buses, and a turning circle. Actually, it’s almost two turning circles, because while there’s one for traffic that’s still moving, there’s also a wider area up a small kerb, where drivers are supposed to pick-up/drop-off people. Human nature being what it is, though, the driver’s mindset is that you’re supposed to never drive over a kerb. So most drivers don’t use the proper pick-up/drop-off points, and instead stop in the turning circle. (There’s also an offshoot road where there’s a few short-term parking spaces – but to get to that you’ve got to a) go up the kerb still, and b) it’s a pain in the arse, as half the time it’s obscured by open-top tourist buses). Oh yeah, and there’s a stopping spot for the tourist buses, opposite the layby for all the normal buses.

So all it takes is for drivers to not use the proper up-the-kerb stopping point, and the entire thing paralyses. The main buses can’t do the turn, particularly if some shitwit parks up on the apex of the curve, once the turning circle’s finished, but before it’s the proper road. Then you have the open-top buses reversing and nearly hitting cars/cyclists. The cyclists have no regard for any other road user – I’m amazed more don’t die, if yesterday was any example. The taxi-drivers pretty much get it, but they’re still nightmares on the stopping circle, and then you’ve got just general every-day drivers who’ve rarely (if ever) seen the layout before, and get epically confused by it all.

In fact, it’s not difficult to handle. It’s just that the stopping circle should’ve had its own seperate traffic lane, rather than being reached by going up a kerb, which is paradoxical to all of a driver’s normal “learned” experience. And as such, the entire thing was obviously designed by an official pisswit.

Deja Vu

Posted: Sat 2 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Travel, Work-related | 10 Comments »

Got it.

Starting as soon as possible, minimum of a 2-3 month contract, based in Cambridge. Better-than-decent money (OK, fuckin’ blinding money), decent organisation, “better than high” chance of contract extension, possibility of permanent job with it too.

So now I get to tell the council to stuff their vacancy, and the current company can get to fuck as well.

How cool is that? I rock.

Businesslike

Posted: Fri 1 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: 2006 Resolutions, Getting Organised, Own Business, Photography | 1 Comment »

Over the weekend, we’ll be up in Birmingham at the Autumn Fair, a tradeshow for all kinds of gubbins at the NEC. We’ve got some specific stuff to be checking out, but I’m also aiming to sort out a couple of those resolutions, and make some contact with a few photo publishers and the like. Should be interesting.

Anyway, because of this I’ve had to make myself look somewhat professional, and get some business cards printed along with getting a useful stand-alone number that I can redirect to anywhere, so I know if it’s a business call instead of a personal one.

The cards came yesterday, and actually look pretty good considering that they cost me about £6 all told. In fact it’s quite surprising how easy it can be to set up all that kind of stuff now, with all the trappings of respectability…

Away yet again

Posted: Fri 1 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Travel | Leave a comment »

I’m away today (well, actually since last night) back up in Norfolk, and attending an interview in Cambridge.

The agency involved has been bloody useless on this one, and other than “Web Developer” I’ve got no job description, list of required skills, or anything. Despite repeated requests, the only information they’ve given me is “You’re seeing [x] at [time]”.

Helpful or what?

Commuters

Posted: Thu 31 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness | 2 Comments »

One thing I do find really amusing while commuting to London is the other people on the trains, and on the Underground.

I have to admit, I just really don’t understand the drive and rush that surrounds these people. On the way home last night there was one guy who was about two points short of a coronary (or stroke) on the Tube – OK, he’d obviously got a train to catch, but at every stop he was swearing, sighing, checking his watch, swearing, sighing, checking his watch, and once the train got moving it’d always be “About fucking time too”. To me, it was very, very funny. To him it was obviously some kind of “life or death” thing to get on the train. And when we got to Waterloo, he shoved his way through the people, ran up the stairs, ran up the escalators. And still missed his train.

I know, because I was on the same one he got on – a whole ten minutes later, going to the same place as the one he’d just missed.

So I have to ask, “Was it worth it?“. No, I didn’t ask him – obviously it was all a bit stressful, the poor dear. But what’s the point of getting so stressed and apoplectic about that kind of thing?

Admittedly, I’m on the other end of the scale, and truly don’t give a shit what time I get in to the office. So I can stroll through the platforms and tunnels etc. of the Underground, and it’s no problem. (Although I should point out too that my “stroll” still ends up overtaking most people) But I just can’t be arsed to get stressed about missing a train – and definitely not about missing a tube train, as they run every couple of minutes anyway.

I just don’t get the entire “rush everywhere, every second is important, time-is-money” crap that so many of these people seem to spout.

Like Bueller said, “Sometimes you just have to slow down and look around“. It’s much more fun.

Business Planning

Posted: Thu 31 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Getting Organised, Own Business, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

One thing I absolutely hate about starting up a business is : the business plan. To me they’re always a masterwork of bullshit, balancing out all the aspects of what might happen. And yet, over the last week or so, that’s what I’ve been doing. Writing a business plan.

It’s not for anything that’s going to happen just yet. This is stuff that’s all still in the offing. But for once I’ve seen some sense, and decided to get it written down. That way, I don’t have to keep it in my head, and it’s got rather more chance of actually happening.

The business name (well, the potential business name, and the concept that’s linked to it) is sorted, and so it’s more about just brain-dumping the stuff onto some paper, and/or onto a Word® document, so I know where it is. That way it’s just some more space that I can free up in my head, and use for useful stuff.

All the same, dear god, the business plan itself is still a load of old shite. Just figuring out the basic costs, profits, and predictions – it’s all shite. You can say “What If” ’til the cows come home, and basically a business plan is just a way to get banks/investors to lend you money, and so they can have some figures to say “well that’s what you said would happen – why hasn’t it?” Of course, the other side is that you can massively underestimate, in which case the banks/investors might just look on you favourably as being bloody great instead of bloody useless.

But for now that’s a worry for the future. Right now I’m just glad to have it somewhere that’s not in my head.

Networked

Posted: Wed 30 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Work-related | Leave a comment »

So, my first day in the London office. And it’s taken five and a half hours for them to sort out opening a network port so that I have anything that even vaugely resembles internet access, or anything on a network.

Bunch of fucking clowns.

Branded

Posted: Wed 30 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, General, Thoughts | 2 Comments »

Is it me, or is this person just incredibly shallow?

From an early age, I have been taught that to be accepted, to be loveable, to be cool, one must have the right stuff. At junior school, I tried to make friends with the popular kids, only to be ridiculed for the lack of stripes on my trainers.

I know that branding means a lot to many many people, but to me it’s one of those things I’m pretty impervious to. Maybe it’s just because I never got into the entire “Nike vs. Adidas vs. Reebok” thing at school, maybe it’s because the branding stuff was really only just coming in at the time I was in school (Waaaay back in the dark ages) or something, I don’t know. Hell, maybe it’s just because I was dragged up by my parents in a way that meant I could identify myself by methods other than bloody labels. God, reading that back it sounds epically snooty and disparaging. But I think it’s meant to. To identify oneself by ones labels and possessions just seems – to me – to be incredibly shallow and dull.

But then, as I’ve speculated before, I think that most people are actually quite tribal, and it’s these labels and so on that now provide us with the tribe names and ideals. People identify themselves by the fact they were Nike, Adidas, Gucci, Prada, Vuitton, whatever. It’s all part of the lifestyle. And the hooky labels, the faux Chanel, Prada, Burberry, whatever – are they for those who aspire to the lifestyle portrayed by that brand? For those who want to wear all Prada, but can’t afford it?

Diffusion labels are another part of the faux branding, too. Can’t afford Armani? Get Emporio Armani, or even the other one I can’t even recall right now. But it’s all part of the same thought process. “Identify with us. We’re cool, and if you wear our stuff, you’ll be cool too!”

Perhaps I’m just a cynic. Perhaps I’m a hypocrite – I do wear branded stuff, although out of preference (although that preference is based on the practicality of “they do stuff that fits a brick shithouse like me”) I tend to wear either stuff by M&S, or Cotton Traders. But like I said, that preference is based on practicality. And let’s face it, the M&S brand is never likely to identify anyone as owt except Sad. Or maybe Practical. There’s certainly no glamour involved…

But in general I find I don’t give a damn about what label is on something. I tend to not buy anything with huge brands on it – after all, why the hell should I pay money to a company in order to advertise their stuff? Chuff that – I’ll avoid as many brands as possible. But you can’t avoid them completely. Even the famous “no label” brand Muji (where ‘Muji’ is literally ‘no brand’ in – Japanese?) has become a brand in itself. In short, everything’s branded in one way or another.

I guess the decision comes in whether we decide to live with those brands, and buy only specific brands, or whether we go out and make a choice based on something other than a logo. Looking around my desk I see Dell, HP, iMate, Coca-Cola, Dymo, but that’s it. Most of my stuff is bought for non-logo reasons. I don’t know what the answer is to the current brand-addiction, other than that there’s plenty of other things out there that can be far more valuable than identifying yourself through a bloody label.

Photographic Stuff

Posted: Tue 29 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Photography | 1 Comment »

Of late I’ve been wondering what’s next on the list of photographic gubbins that I want – and it came down to a few things, really.

  • Something for time-delay shots
  • A decent Macro lens
  • A portrait lens – particularly the spectacular Canon 85mm f1.2 USM II lens
    or
  • a decent flash

While all of these are on the list still (well, with the exception of that Canon 85mm lens, which as it currently retails for around £1500 is actually more expensive than the camera – and I’m definitely not that good yet!) I’ve only ended up getting one of them at the moment.

So following on from seeing some very impressive stuff with it on DDOI, (such as this, this and particularly this) I’ve ordered a PCLix time delay device (plus control cord) that’ll allow me to do time delay and time-spaced photos with the camera, as well as long-exposure shots well over the current 30 second limit.I should point out, I know, there’s the Bulb setting, but to my knowledge without some kind of cable release etc., I’d have to hold down the shutter release for as long as I wanted the shot, and that brings too much vibration to the shot, what with heartbeats, wobbles, and all. So this device is going to be winging its way towards me, and it’s cost £100 all told, including the control cable and the airmail postage from the US.

Obviously I’ll post more about what I’ve done with it once it arrives.

Not Travelling

Posted: Tue 29 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »

So, today is crunch day for Arsehole Boss. He’s supposed to be doing a presentation to the board about his plans for the company, and in theory if his plans aren’t completely sorted, well thought out, and with lots of detail re timescales, work schedules etc., then he’s out.

Personally I have my doubts that he’ll go. We’ve been through this situation once before and the board went with the Arsehole solution instead of the one that made sense. I suspect they’ll do the same again – even with Arsehole Boss having completed nothing of the plans from the first dose of this crap, and with losing people left, right, and centre along the way. Hell, even the situation’s the same, with Arsehole Boss vs. Chairman. It’s pathetic.

But I’m sure I’ll hear more about it in the end.

As it is, I’m working from home today, and going in to London tomorrow. If Arsehole Boss is still on the scene, I think I’m just going to talk about severance there and then, as I really don’t want to go through all this crap any more. I’m tired of it, and have had enough. Besides, there’s all the Norfolk stuff to sort out, and that interview on Friday as well as everything else…

Upgrade?

Posted: Mon 28 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: D4D™, Geeky, Getting Organised | Leave a comment »

Hmmm, having looked at a few things, it’s beginning to look like I’m going to need to upgrade my WordPress install after all. That’s something I’m really not looking forward to, knowing the problems I’ve had before.

Still, I’ll take a complete backup, and work from there. I might even do a local copy and install first, and see how that works before doing the live version. How’s that for organised?

Final Straight

Posted: Mon 28 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised | 1 Comment »

At last, all the painting and so on has been done on/in the house. The hallway and stairs has been done in order to repair the damage caused by the tail of a very waggy – and very muddy – Hound, the outside has been done (and thus informed all neighbours of what we’re up to) and now all the painting has been completed.

We still need to do a pretty comprehensive final tidy round, but even then, well, we’re on the final stretch before putting the place on the market. And that can’t be anything but good…

Competition

Posted: Sun 27 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Animals, Getting Organised, Photography | 3 Comments »

This weekend I’ve finalised – and posted – my entries for the Kennel Club’s Dog Photographer of the Year competition. I was going to submit some last year, but didn’t get round to it in time. So this year I made sure that I was in line for it, and got the entries in on time.

It’s going to be interesting to see what the results are. I’ve no idea how many entries they get – and I also know that Herself is sending in some entries of her own, which could make life interesting too – but it’s one of those things where we have so many great photos of Hound, it’s got to be worth a go.

Staples

Posted: Sat 26 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts | 4 Comments »

Here’s a thought :

What would ITV do if Ant & Dec were suddenly involved ins ome tragic accident?

I think ITV would just curl up and die. And maybe that’s no bad thing…

Friday

Posted: Sat 26 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Thoughts, Travel, Work-related | 1 Comment »

So life’s about to get complicated again.

On Friday I’ve got another interview in Cambridge. In addition there’s several other jobs coming up where things are looking promising. At the same time, Herself has an interview in Norfolk. Also on Friday. So we’re both going to be up there, and then figuring out all the other stuff along the way. Should be fun.

And of course I’ve still had nothing from the council. Still, that’s their problem rather than mine – because if I get an offer from somewhere else then I’m taking it, and the council can go sod off. It’s near as dammit a month (it’ll be a month on Friday, in fact) since they made the verbal offer, and since then they’ve been playing silly buggers. So if they can’t organise themselves, then it’s going to be their loss.

Even better, the agency that the council job has come through are being fully understanding, and realise the situation, and are just as exasperated with it as I am. So if I do go elsewhere, the agency won’t cause me any problems. Which is, needless to say, reassuring.

Food Quiz

Posted: Sat 26 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Own Business, Thoughts | 15 Comments »

A quick question :

If you were to go to a restaurant (and think more ‘pub-restaurant’ here instead of ‘silver service specialist perfection restaurant’) what meal would you most like to see on the menu? What would make you go “Oh, I’m SO having that?” as soon as you saw it?

I realise that these things can change on a daily basis, but for now I’m just thinking about the “ideal” menu, and what you would have on it.

You can have starter, main course, dessert, or all of them – it’s “perfect meal” I’m looking for…

Moved

Posted: Fri 25 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Work-related | 3 Comments »

Yes, that’s it. The stuff has all left the old office, and is now on the way to the new office.

Where I’ll (probably) see it on Wednesday. It would be Tuesday, but currently there’s a train strike that day so sod it, Wednesday it is.

Moving Stuff

Posted: Fri 25 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »

So yes, today the office move is going ahead. As of today, I’ll be based in London for working.

There’s still a lot of internal politics going on with work, and until they’re sorted I won’t know exactly what’s going on with a lot of things – but, assuming I stick with the company and don’t just tell them to stuff it, I’m going to end up either

  1. Working from home, with maybe one or two days per week (initially) spent in london
    or
  2. Spending at least the next six weeks working in London full-time before possibly being able to work from home for some of the week

And while option one is OK in general, and would make life a lot easier in some aspects, the ogre of option 2 is hanging over me a bit at the moment as the rather more likely eventuality.

And as a final head-bug, I think my time with the company is done anyway, I want to be doing something else, and I think that’s got to be the main objective now. Just finding something that works…

FuckUps

Posted: Thu 24 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Travel, Work-related | 2 Comments »

As it’s now three+ weeks since I got the verbal offer of the council job, and I’ve still heard nothing, yesterday I started chasing up what’s been going on. Again.

So far – and bear in mind, they won’t send out an offer letter ’til they’ve done all the paperwork and got the contract in place as well – they haven’t even sent out the reference requests. Because of the problem with salary, and [Future Boss] having a fit of the sensitives and then being off sick, they haven’t done anything ’til [Future Boss] comes back.

So at the current rate there’s no chance of me starting there any time before October.

However, at the same time I’m also getting a lot of feedback about other jobs, and as the council can’t be fucking bothered to do anything, I’m going back to sorting out interviews etc. It makes sense – after all, do I really want to work for a place that’s that disorganised and inefficient?

Festivalia

Posted: Thu 24 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Thoughts, Travel, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Riding the train in to work today (for apparently the last time before we move the office to London) I was forcibly reminded that it’s Bank Holiday weekend coming up.

How? By the train packed with rucksacks, camping gear, cases of beer/cider, and people going to Reading festival. Sorry, I mean “Carling Weekend:Reading”.

So whatever else we’re doing this weekend, we’re definitely not going in to Reading…

Initiative

Posted: Wed 23 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Just how much effort does it take for someone to use up the last of the toilet roll, and think

“Hmm, I’ve used up the last of the bog-roll. And there’s no more in here. I’d best either a) go and buy some more, and get the money back out of petty cash, or b) ask someone else to do it, because I’m hugely busy.”

On current evidence here, it’s obviously one hell of a lot of effort, as no fucker’s bothered at all. Although it is quite amusing to see guys walk in, then walk straight back out again. Yet still they won’t actually do anything about it.

Me? I’ve been out and bought some. I just haven’t bothered putting it in the room yet…

Decisions

Posted: Wed 23 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Own Business, Photography, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Currently, I’m looking at what I need to do with regard to sorting out some business stuff for myself. Up ’til last year I had my own company through which I did all my IT contracting and so on, and then when I moved down here with Herself, and settled into working for other people again, I folded up the old company. In theory I could resurrect it, but it’d involve going back through Comapnies House etc., and a buttload of extra paperwork which frankly I can’t be bothered with – besides, if I’m going to do that, it’s much more fun to do it with a new company rather than some resurrected revenant.

Anyway, with the new company (the name of which has already been pretty much decided, although the paperwork and ‘official’ stuff hasn’t been done, as currently it’s more ‘Sole Trader’ than ‘Limited Company’) I have a few options. They are:

  • Option One : Have one company. This then becomes the umbrella for all my activities over the next few years (of which more at some other point) which includes possibly IT contracts, but also photography, and other business ideas.
  • Option Two : Have one company purely for IT contracting, and then figure out another one for all the other stuff, the photography, creative gubbins, etc. etc.
  • Option Three : Don’t form any limited companies, and instead just work as a sole trader, still using the company name as a trading name, but without all the extra gubbins involved in a limited company (but also obviously without the limited liability advantages of a company)

Option Three is probably easiest, but does mean that should things go horribly wrong then there’s a lot of potential issues that I’d rather not have to deal with. But ’til things get going it’s one that has a lot of possibilities.

Option One makes a lot of sense – but I’m not sure how the website would work, without being horrendously complicated. Although I suppose I could do it, with a bit of thought. Hmm, that’d be novel. But is it me, or do Photography and Web Design not really go together as an easy concept?

Option Two is, of course, just a buttload of extra paperwork and hassle, so I suspect that’s been struck out immediately.

Bah, I’ll figure it out, I’m sure. Maybe it’s going to end up as Three for now, with an eye to One in ’07?

Another cynic

Posted: Wed 23 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Travel | 1 Comment »

Following on from my own heavy dose of cynicism regarding the entire “airport terror plot” two weekends ago, its good to see that I’m not the only one who feels the same way.

None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn’t be a plane bomber for quite some time.

In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.

A Happier Workplace?

Posted: Tue 22 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Own Business, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Oh, how I wish Arsehole Boss would read this article about why a happy workplace makes sense. It’s certainly in line with my own ideas, and if certain plans come off over the next few months or so, it’s something I’d like to be able to take forward in my own stuff. We’ll see.

At the moment we still don’t know whether he’s actually going or not. No-one’s bothered giving us any more information about it at all. Which gets very frustrating very quickly.

But you can be sure I’ll write more about it as soon as I know anything…

Silver

Posted: Tue 22 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic | 7 Comments »

You know you’re getting old when :

You haven’t shaved for a couple of days, then look in the mirror and realise that probably a quarter of the hairs showing are actually grey. (or gray, if you’re American)

That’s just a depressing way to start the morning…

V – Part Three

Posted: Tue 22 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Reviews(ish), Thoughts | 1 Comment »

OK, so perhaps I should write a little bit more about V than I did yesterday. Maybe.

First of all, we didn’t do the camping thing. Definitely a sign of getting old, or something, but I just can’t be arsed to spend money/time sleeping in a tent. I did it when I was a kid, and fucking hated it then. I also did it for a couple of weeks back in ’97 until the place I was going to be renting became available. I fucking hated it then, too. OK, so it was Dorset, in March, but being constantly chilly and damp was no fun. I can’t see my attitude having become more charitable in the last nine years.

So we stayed in a local(ish) hotel, in sunny Telford. Again, somewhere I hadn’t visited in a good ten years – and even then only once – and was pleased to be leaving. In fairness to the town, though, it wasn’t horrific. It just also wasn’t somewhere I’d choose to go again. The hotel itself was OK, but I’ve written about that over at Wheres-Good.com rather than duplicating effort.

Oh, one other thing – when you’re going to an outdoor festival, in August – particularly when it’s supposed to be “the hottest August on record” – pack some waterproof clothing. Needless to say, I didn’t, and thus had to buy some having driven up through some seriously torrential rain.

As for the rest, I feel it’s best to remain tactful, and say nothing more about V itself than “Nope, never again.”

I’m just not a festival person any more.

Would I go for just a day? I don’t know. Even then I think the line-up would have to be pretty damn good, to be honest, and also it’d have to be of people who were doing one-off appearances, or where I couldn’t get to see them any other way. I just prefer gigs to events.

Hacked

Posted: Mon 21 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Geeky, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Over the weekend, it looks like one of the company’s sites was hacked. Well, originally it looked like some fucking idiot had decided to make it so that *everyone* could delete stuff, and many other things, which I managed to get fixed just fine. Of course, Arsehole Boss, our *cough* “Chief Technical Officer” had no bloody idea what to do, how to sort it out, or anything, so it ended up that I had to fix it. On my XDA, through the web-browser, over a shitty low-speed connection. And it still took less than quarter of an hour to fix.

Today, though, it’s turned out that yes, all the administrator passwords for the site admin had been altered. Fortunately, the major passwords to allow access to the server back end, but of course our Chief Technical Officer has no idea how to get in to databases etc., or how to fix anything like this. Luckily, the rest of us know what we’re up to, so today has been spent fixing problems, changing passwords, blocking access to certain users, IP addresses etc., as well as deleting or blocking certain people (like [ex-SysAdmin]) so that there’s no chance of them being the problem.

And yes, I am aware that in a lot of companies the CTO knows fuck all about the exact technology being used etc., but in this case, with a small number of employees, let’s not forget that Arsehole Boss is also the person who recommended we use this system in the first place because – and I quote – “It’s easy for any idiot to use”. So you’d at least hope that he might know what he was doing with this particular system. But ooohhhh, no. You’d be wrong…

WebStats – Part Two

Posted: Mon 21 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, D4D™, Getting Organised | 1 Comment »

OK, having done some checking, and also discovering that Webstats was now also shoving in a pop-up ad when people looked at d4d™, they’ve been kicked to the kerb.

Instead I’ve just installed the MyBlogLog stats tracker as a replacement, so it’ll be interesting to see how that works out instead. Yay me.

WebStats

Posted: Mon 21 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: D4D™, Geeky | Leave a comment »

Annoyingly, it looks like the Webstats4U (formerly Nedstat) web stats package is having problems.

While I have access to the logfiles for proper reports, I do use Webstats as a quick indicator through the day of how D4D™ is doing – it also gives me a quick dump of how people are getting to D4D™, and a bundle of other stuff too. So it’s fairly annoying when it’s down and/or playing silly buggers.

I wonder if they’ll give any news or information about why it’s down? There’s nothing in their news at the moment…

V – Part Two

Posted: Mon 21 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Thoughts, Travel | 1 Comment »

Hmm, so, what can I say about V?

I think the main thing really is that it’s become obvious that I’m no longer really a festival person. Too many people, too many bits I don’t want to see/do, and just, well, bleh.

All in all we did have a good weekend, but would I go back? No, probably not.

I must be getting old.

505

Posted: Sun 20 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: D4D™, Weirdness | Leave a comment »

Is it really sad for me to notice this

505,505 words in word count

and be quite chuffed to have seen that number in all its palindromic and repetitive glory?

Yeah, thought so.

Unsettled

Posted: Sun 20 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts | 1 Comment »

At the moment I’m really not in the mood to do much at all.

I find that I get really hacked off with people who don’t do what they say they will (as regular readers may have noticed over the last few months) and the council where I’m supposed to be going for the new job is managing to seriously piss me off before I even join them.

It’s now three weeks since they offered me the job, and they still haven’t bothered even sending a written confirmation of that offer. Needless to say, I’m not actually handing in my notice ’til I get the entire thing in writing, and so it doesn’t actually affect me all that much that they’re obviously fucking incompetent. And besides, I should’ve known that this is what they’d be like, and expected all the crap that’s been flying around.

But really, it’s not rocket science, is it? Having all your paperwork and budget crap ready to go when you actually do get round to offering someone a job? Or am I being unrealistic?

Anyway, it all just gets me down. Combining that with other fuckwit stuff to do with other sites I’ve been working on, and it’s all just built up to a point where I’ve had enough.

In fact I walked away from one of the website projects last week, having got to that point where it was either walking away, or getting done for murder. I figured it was better to walk away – and it’s certainly dropped my stress levels like a stone. But it’s still frustrating to have to deal with people so chaotic you wonder how they manage to get dressed in the morning, or to handle website requirements for someone who really doesn’t know what they want, just that they’ve been told they need to have a website.

There’s a lot of other stuff going on as well, but that’s just a small dollop of braindump on the matter.

TATP

Posted: Sat 19 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism | Leave a comment »

And in line with my own healthy dose of cynicism, The Register has a piece on the supposed explosives in planes, including how much it would take to do damage, and also just what a supposed terrorist would’ve had to do in order to blow up said planes with said explosives.

Very funny, in a healthily cynical kind of way…

Pets

Posted: Sat 19 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | 5 Comments »

You know, it’s funny – despite the fact that she can be an absolute Pain in the Arse, I do actually like having Hound around.

I never used to be a dog person really. My parents always preferred cats, so I grew up with Siamese cats, and never really entertained the idea of having a dog. It grew on me as an idea over the years, and then when I was in Manchester I got two pups, and loved having them around. In the end one got given away to a good home, and the other one had to be put to sleep. I was there when the vet did it, held her as her heart stopped, and it put me off having a pet again for a good while.

But since being down here with Herself, I’ve gotten very used to Hound, as well as her idiosyncracies. Most mornings now I take her out for a walk, and we also do another one later on, and that’s usually a good thing.

Yesterday I worked from home (and at the moment it looks like I might be doing a lot more of that in the near future) and one thing I’ve enjoyed is just having Hound asleep on my feet while working, or lying down beside the desk, fast asleep, dreaming, and yipping in her dream – very, very funny.

Yeah, sure, she can be a huge pain in the bum, but at the same time I wouldn’t give her up for anything.

Isn’t it strange how things work out sometimes?

V

Posted: Fri 18 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: D4D™, Travel | Leave a comment »

Away for the next couple of days, as we’ll be at V2006 in Weston Park, Staffs.

There’ll be some updates to D4D™ through the joys of post-dating entries, but not many. So have fun, and I’ll be back writing stuff on Monday.

WWID – The thoughts and responses

Posted: Fri 18 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts | 6 Comments »

OK, so – following on from this post where Gordon asked what I’d do in relation to terorrist plots, here’s a few thoughts.

Bear in mind these are all based on a couple of fairly major assumptions, namely

  1. I’m Prime Minister, or equally high up in government
  2. I can also turn back time
  3. I have the power and support to do these things – although not as a dictatorship, obviously. That’s got its own problems

Because the first thing I’d do is tell the US to sod off, heed my own people’s obvious protest and marches etc., and not get involved in the war in Iraq. Personally I believe that one decision would’ve saved us all a lot of the hassle that’s followed. Simply standing up, heeding the electorate’s voice/wishes, and looking like a respectable statesman and “man of the people”, rather than some renfield of Bush.

As for the hysteria and hype regarding terror plots and the like, I would probably do the following:

  • Not use the “threat level indicator” as a political and media tool – Bruce Shneier writes about this far more eloquently than I can – but instead attempt the (for a politician) earth-shatteringly different policy of being honest. Currently that level is “Severe” which means “an attack is highly likely”. Which really is just mealy-mouthed political bullshit. It doesn’t give a timescale, it doesn’t give any indications, and that status could apply anytime, anywhere. There’s always the chance of an attack somewhere, sometime.
  • Carrying on from that, I think just a basic rider of Being Honest would work wonders, particularly if also blended with some common sense, rather than hysterical reaction.
  • Personally I’d also try to have worked to provide a relationship with the media that also wasn’t based around hysteria and panic. Perhaps prosecuting some of the papers and/or TV media for promoting racial hatred and bigotry would do the job.

And with regard to airport security and the like? Hmm, I don’t know just yet. I agree that security checks are necessary – but (again going with that Honesty and non-Hysteria thing) I’d want ones that actually did something. The hysterical reactions to stupid shit like the “shoe-bomber”, and now having to remove shoes – that’d get stopped. Or if shoe checks are necessary then you bloody well make sure that you provide benches or something for people to sit on and put the damn things back on again afterwards…

I’d not have put in a lot of the crap about nail-clippers etc. in the main security check, though. What I would do would be put the security screeners on a decent wage, rather than being at minimum wages. If it became necessary, make that section into a government organisation, and do it efficiently. Pay for decent people instead of minimum wage, and get people who are capable of making the process a lot smoother and more efficient. Enforce getting decent training, and also arrange for full-blown training exercises. That is the way to get both the airports, the staff, and the public used to this sort of issue – do it, while making it very public that this is a training exercise – give people warning of what they will and will not be able to do during that training exercise. So you make it real, and yes, it’ll be a pain in the arse, but it means everyone knows what’s going on.

I think actually that works as an idea.

But it’s not just airports – it’s making people aware without making them paranoid. I haven’t quite got that sussed yet.

What I would do though is look at the bigger issues. Personally I believe wholeheartedly in an integrated society – where all people are treated the same. I know I’ve caused ructions about this before, and I never explain it all that well, but basically I believe that people should be treated the way we wish to be treated. I don’t want to force my religion, beliefs, creed, or whatever down anyone else’s throat, and I don’t believe anyone else should be allowed to do the same to me. At the same time though, I think that people should accept others, and not try to use the differences in order to divide and pigeonhole. Unfortunately, I think that’s too optimistic, because by nature Man seems to want to divide, categorise, and pigeonhole – and build up wars and conflict around those differences.

So if I were PM? The main thing I would do would be to bring in a policy of equality. Not lip-service, not this bullshit “inclusive” society where every little faction has it’s own sector – which seems to be what most people think “inclusive” means. In my experiences with local government and the like, being “inclusive” meant having a seperate department and “team” for every different faith in the area, every racial background, every sexuality and orientation, and to me that was actually divisive, not inclusive.

Equality – treating everyone the same, that’s the idea. Working so that people don’t feel minimised, disowned, disenfranchised, and thus don’t despise their own country.

Or am I completely wrong? I’m looking forward to the comments on this one…

Developments

Posted: Fri 18 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Thoughts, Travel, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Well, more developments. The office move is (so far) still on for a week from today. However, it turns out that it’s likely (because the office is still far too fucking small for all the people) that I, and most of the web team, will be able to work from home. Which is a definite improvement.

No more word yet about whether Arsehole Boss is staying or going. Earlier this week, he and the CEO apparently had a huge screaming match in the middle of the London office, so the atmosphere is – shall we say – a bit fraught at the moment. Supposedly discussions about it all have gone all the way up to the Board and Investors, but us minions at the workface have heard nowt else yet. Personally, I don’t really care either way – yes, I’d love to see Arsehole Boss take a long walk off a short pier, but equally it’ll leave the company in the shit while everything gets worked out, and I can’t be arsed with that level of crap either. So *shrug* I dunno, I’m just going to let them get on with it, I think.

In the meantime, the working from home thing will be Very Good. It has the potential to make my life a lot easier, and would also make moving to Norfolk a lot easier too, if I don’t necessarily have to change jobs immediately in order to get there.

On the subject of work, the council still haven’t sent anything through. Not even a written confirmation of the job offer. So I’m still looking around and sounding out other stuff too – and getting some very interesting prospects. I got a call from one agency last night who have thrown up the potential for a job that would be just about perfect – same role, just outside Norwich, and in a location that’d be just about perfect for our requirements.

Supposedly I’ll hear more about that today. And Herself has been getting offered interviews too, so it’s all looking pretty promising at the moment. I just wish that people would get their fingers out so we can just get on with it.

The Move’s Back On

Posted: Thu 17 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Work-related | 4 Comments »

Would you believe that today we’ve been told that actually, yes, the rest of the office is moving to London after all?

I swear, you just couldn’t make this shit up.

So next Friday all the stuff is supposed to be getting moved to London, and we’re supposed to start up there on Tuesday. (Monday being a bank holiday)

Complete fucking insanity.

Filed under : Organise, Piss-Up, and Brewery.

WWID?

Posted: Thu 17 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: General, Thoughts, Work-related | 14 Comments »

Gordon asks

Seriously, I’m genuinely curious. You’ve got a lot to say about what you think is wrong, but you don’t offer any suggestions of how to fix it? So, let’s say you are PM. What do you do?

Quite honestly, I don’t know. Right now I don’t seem to have the answers to anything – hell, I can’t even answer the question of why I keep working with a bunch of utter, utter cunts.

I’ll think about it though. I may even come up with an answer. It might be before the weekend, it might be Monday. I don’t know yet.

But thanks – it’s going to give me something else to think about, instead of work-related crap that mentions the words “cunts” “arseholes” and “fuck this for a game of soldiers”.

Strange

Posted: Wed 16 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness | 6 Comments »

Would you worry if you worked in an office of techies and developers, and not one of them could manage to close a call properly on a DECT cordless phone? (Sorry, “normal digital cordless phone” – like this. i.e. it cuts the call by pressing the red “call end” button, same as on a mobile phone)

Affected

Posted: Wed 16 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts, Travel | 4 Comments »

So now we’ve had pretty much a week of the new security regime at airports, and what I was wondering was this : Who actually wins in this “war” against terrorism?

Supposedly there was a “plot”. Fine. Maybe there was, maybe there wasn’t. Whatever. I’m not going to dispute it for the moment.

But because of this plot, everyone who was taking a flight was affected. The authorities and government are forever banging on about how they’re making us more secure, so that terrorism can’t blight our lives. We’ll never bow down to terrorists. We’re making sure that terrorism can’t affect your life. Blah, blah, blah.

But actually, the terrorists win this one before they’ve even started. Without setting off a single device, without hijacking anything, with no deaths, injuries, or – really – effort at all, they’ve managed to paralyse all the major UK airports, get their cause on to every single piece of worldwide media, and have knock-on effects for hundreds of thousands of people. If not millions of people. Talk about effective!

And it’s still ongoing. After September 11th, all the airport security was stepped up. It’s still like it today. That’s five years down the line, and people still think of Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Bag, et al. Our lifestyles have changed because of terrorism. Now there are even more restrictions in place, and it’s because of terrorism. Governments and authorities have reacted – to a purported plot, not to an event – and by those actions have affected every single person flying from (or to) the UK for the last week. They’ve put the thoughts of terrorism into people’s heads, made them think about it, and really have done the terrorists job for them.

Good, isn’t it?

On his way

Posted: Wed 16 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Celebrations ahoy, as it looks like Arsehole Boss may have had his day…

Supposedly he’s on the way out, and will be gone within the week.

We’ll just have to wait and see, I suppose.

Inconveniencing

Posted: Tue 15 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Travel | 1 Comment »

Excellent cartoon about the recent security scares/hype/hysteria*

(* = delete as applicable)

MP3 ringtones

Posted: Tue 15 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised, Work-related | 2 Comments »

(Hello, Google!)

One of the things I’ve found to be great about my current phone is the ability to set MP3s to be used as ringtones. I know, it’s nothing new, nor is it special, big, or clever. But it is great fun. For instance, it means I can go to TV Cream’s theme pages and download a shedload of stupid themetunes to use as ringtones.

This morning I was using the theme from “Roobarb”, which is utterly fantastic, but bloody loud. This afternoon it’s the full theme from “The Flumps”, which is equally fantastic, less loud, more subtle, but keeps you humming it way after the phone’s finished ringing.

Although it’s always funny to then hear other people in the office humming it, and not actually realising why. I used to be able to do the same with the Dallas theme-tune too – just wander around humming it, and soon it’s got people all over the office doing the same. Pure comedy, if slightly malicious…

USB Sticks

Posted: Tue 15 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Geeky, Technology, Thinking About..., Thoughts, Travel, Web Development, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Since getting the job offer a month ago, I’ve made a lot of changes in the way I work. Primarily for my own security (i.e. so the passwords and data for the other sites I work on aren’t readily available) I removed all my private work and data from the work PC, and instead stuck it on a USB stick. I also now have Portable Firefox and Portable OpenOffice.

What I don’t (currently) have on a portable stick is all the text editing stuff, photoshop, and that kind of thing. That doesn’t really matter, doesn’t really need to be portable. But the information itself is all now held on portable devices.

It’s been interesting working this way too – plus it means that effectively I can do my stuff on any old PC, wherever I am, and it won’t even affect the PCs settings.

I’m currently debating upgrading the USB sticks (At the moment I use two 512M Sticks, mainly because of a fuckup I made earlier in the year) to one or two 1Gb sticks, and at that point I can also put on portable XAMPP as a complete development environment (database, PHP, Apache web server, the lot) and portable NVU as a text editor, and then I’ve got everything I need for my work on one or two USB sticks. Of course, with a bit of rationalisation (and a bit of “dump the old crap on the portable 30Gb drive”) I could do it with the two current 512Mb sticks. One for the tools, one for the data. Hmmmm.

Anyway, I find this kind of thing interesting, because it does change the way I work. It makes me wonder about logical extrapolations, where you have a complete operating system on a USB stick/disk, and PCs go towards being dumb terminals that don’t have their own drives/storage at all. Instead, you carry your ‘computer’ around with you, and just slot it in (or connect up the USB cable) and bang, your own operating system wherever you are.

Pissed Off

Posted: Tue 15 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Getting Organised, Work-related | Leave a comment »

So, yes, yesterday’s email that needed to be written. Depressingly, it’s about the new job.

Having waited a week longer than promised to get the verbal offer (so that they could ‘sort out all the paperwork, make sure everything’s right, and get it all signed off’), and accepted that offer despite it involving a £7000 pay-cut (I figure that if nothing else, it gets us up to the area we want to be in. After that I can work on the rest, and make that money up with some *ahem* independent work.) and then waited another two weeks without hearing anything, or getting any written confirmation (which also means I’ve not handed in my notice to the company yet – that may yet turn out to be A Good Thing) I got two phone calls on Friday.

Call One : “Oh, hello, I’m just calling from HR to get details of two references.” Which should’ve been done already through the agency. “Well, I didn’t know ’til today that you were even starting.”. Not the most reassuring.

But the best is yet to come…

Call Two : “Hi, it’s [Future Boss]. I’ve been going through the figures, and it turns out we can’t pay you £xx,000, so we’ll have to drop it to £xx-1,000 .” You must be taking the mickey. (that’s an exact quote, by the way – “taking the mickey”, that’s all I said) “No, we’ve made a mistake, and it’ll be £1000 less than we initially offered. That’s the council’s payscales. I can’t do anything about it”

Now, bearing in mind that I’m getting this job through an agency, the council shouldn’t have even been contacting me direct, which doesn’t help. I get hold of the agency, and ask them to find out what the chuff is going on. They come back and tell me that yes, the offer is now for £1000 less, because they’ve made a mistake. Also, [Future Boss] turns out to be a somewhat sensitive soul, and has taken the huff about me asking if he was taking the mickey, and now worries that I won’t be able to handle the “high-stress” work in the council. (I’ve done this shit before – high stress it most certainly isn’t)

So the snotty email was to the agency, basically pointing out that a) they’re taking the piss, and b) if [Future Boss] is going to be that sensitive, my concerns about what’ll happen if/when (emphasis on the latter) I’m forced to suggest something new, or criticise something existing.

At the moment the application and so on is still going ahead, even with the extra pay cut. I’m epically pissed off about it (oooh, won’t be able to use that expression around [Future Boss]) and seeing what the agency do about it. And in the meantime, well, really it could be back to Square One, and sending out CVs and applications, although that depends on what happens between agency and council, I suppose.

Bloody Fuck

Cleaning Up

Posted: Mon 14 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised | Leave a comment »

Over the weekend we were pretty busy at the house, completing some of the final stages of sorting it out before we put it up for sale.

The main part of it (well, for me, anyway) was getting rid of a lot of the assembled crap and junk that builds up over time in a house. Things like that stuff in the garage, the double-bed I brought down from Manchester, (we junked one when I moved, the other one had been used in the spare bedroom ’til we made it into an office) a box of video- and audio-tapes, assorted techie crap (old keyboards, cables, mice, webcams, all kinds of shit really) as well as old kitchen equipment, lamps and the like.

In the end I did four trips on Saturday to the local dump, and one on Sunday as well. So yeah, loads of crap.

And then we also got rid of about five boxes of stuff this morning to one of the local charity shops. Not for the first time this year, I hasten to add. We must be one of their best suppliers.

Worryingly though, this does not mean the house is empty, or anywhere near. It’s just got slightly less crap in it. Still, better to do it now, rather than pay for moving it all and then chucking it out…

PoX-Factor

Posted: Mon 14 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Festering Season | 2 Comments »

Bah HumbugIt’s fast becoming the first sign of the Festering Season, or at least the run-up to it.

Yes, I’ve seen the adverts for the first episode of the new X-Factor. It starts next Saturday, and (as usual) will run to a couple of weeks before Christmas. Just in time for the winner to get the “Christmas single”, in fact.

And, on a cynical note (of which I’m sure I’ll explain a lot more closer to the time) I bet the winner this year is a “group”.

Dog Shit

Posted: Mon 14 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Animals, Health, Thoughts | 4 Comments »

Every morning, I get annoyed by a certain percentage (and I assume it’s a minority) of dog owners. Now, we own a dog, the ineffable Hound, who goes out for a walk every morning. During that walk, she normally has at least one major shit. It’s what dogs do.

If I actually see her taking her shit, I clear it up. I pretty much always carry at least a couple of shit-bags in a pocket. As a responsible (well, at least semi-responsible) dog-owner that’s fine, it’s part of the job. (To make life more complex, I don’t technically own Hound – I inherited her. She’s Herself’s dog, bought with previous partner, but I’ve inherited the role of dog-owner/walker/plaything) If Hound disappears off into the bushes and bracken for her shit then I admit, I don’t chase in after her in order to get it. I’m not that dedicated, frankly.

But what really annoys me is the people who take their dog out, watch it having a shit on the path, or anywhere else in full vision, and just leave it there. Don’t even bother cleaning it up. If I see them doing it, I do tend to ask whether they plan on picking up their dog’s shit – and do they need to use one of my spare shit-bags? (I never did manage to be subtle) But most of the time you just come across the discarded article, and it really pisses me off.

If you’re going to own a dog, then picking up that dog’s shit is a simple part-and-parcel of the process. It’s a job that grosses me out completely, but it’s part of the deal, so I do it. I’d love to never have to pick up a still-warm (and in winter, slightly steaming) fresh-laid dog log. (you can feel it through the bag – I don’t mean pick it up in one’s bare hand)

I just don’t understand the people who don’t get that, who think it’s OK to leave their dog’s shit all over the place for Someone Else to clear up.

To Be Continued

Posted: Mon 14 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: General | Leave a comment »

I’ll blither about a few things later.

First, though, I’ve got to send a highly pissed-off email.

So I’ll write more in a bit.

BMW

Posted: Sun 13 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Travel, Weirdness | 3 Comments »

One thing I will absolutely not miss about this area is the sheer number of BMW drivers that’re around. (and yes, I do include drivers of the new Mini in this sweeping statement – it’s made by BMW, ergo they’re BMW drivers

Yes, I’m sure Norfolk will have some as well – but this area seems to breed the buggers. And as you may know, I think BMW drivers are just awesomely bad. It’s a sweeping generalisation, and I’m sure there’re some BMW owners who are capable of driving well. It’s just that I’ve never met any of them.

I reckon you could get pretty good odds that on any given day, you’ll see a large proportion of piss-poor driving that’s done by BMW drivers. Jumping lights, wrong lanes at roundabouts, cutting people up, middle-lane-driving on motorways, speeding while flashing lights at people to get out the way, ignoring “no entry” road signs – I’ve seen them all. Coupled with an apparent inability to use complicated devices such as – oooh – mirrors, indicators, or (at night) the “dipped headlights” lever.

Of course, it’s not just BMW drivers that’re bad. It’s just that it seems like there are more bad BMW drivers than there are bad drivers of other car brands.

Whatever it is, though, I won’t miss the fuckers one iota.

Database driven

Posted: Sat 12 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Depression, Own Business, Sweary, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Recently I’ve been building a very heavy database-driven website for a private clown client, which has a lot of interactivity and social-networking features in it. As usual, I’ve set it up to be hosted at the start by 34sp, who I’ve never had any problems with, and who I tend to use for most of my sites and clients.

Anyway, because of problems on this new site (one of the so-called ‘expert’ designers managed to upload 90Mb of images on to the site ‘by mistake’) we went over the 150Mb file quota during the week. Raising this problem with the person who has commissioned the entire project, she had a bit of a panic, and started asking how come we’d used up so much webspace already, and would there be enough once the site goes fully live, etc. etc. Nothing special, just a standard tizz.

But of course the ‘expert’ designers had to stick their oar in, and say “Oh, well we normally use the Easyspace ‘Gold’ hosting package, which gives us 500Mb of space, and works for the sites we do”.

My response was – shall we say – succinct.

Hey, great – let’s move a database-driven website to a hosting company package that doesn’t have a database as part of it.

I haven’t heard anything else from them since. I wonder why?

Too Smart

Posted: Fri 11 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Geeky, Own Business, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Aaargh – it’s been one of those days, work-wise.

Do you ever have a day where you come up with a really good idea, one that could (in theory) make something a hell of a lot easier? And then spend some time thinking about it, and fail to see any problems?

So of course you start to make this idea into reality. And it becomes more complicated. Suddenly – no matter how long you thought about it first – problems come in that you hadn’t considered. And the problems are actually quite complicated, and make things a lot more difficult. But hey, the idea was still really good, and you still think you can do it, so you go on, and (in this case) write some more stuff to fix those problems.

And then another set of issues come up, and you think “Ah, bugger. That’s getting ugly and nasty now. I’d best go back to the easy (but dull, and rather uninventive) way I was going to do it originally.”

So, having been busy for most of the day, you come out of it with absolutely nothing worthwhile, except for learning that even really good ideas can suck utterly in practice.

Yeah, that’s the kind of day it’s been.

(Of course, I’m a tenacious twat, and really really bad at admitting defeat. So I’ll probably see if I can suss out the second set of problems over the weekend, without making it into a truly ugly piece of code.)

Chaos

Posted: Fri 11 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness | 11 Comments »

OK, so supposedly the UK police have foiled a terrorist ‘plot’ to blow up a bundle of planes. Aye, right.

Maybe I’m just an utter cynic, but isn’t it great how

  1. this got released one day after Our Illustrious Leader flew off (long-haul) on his hols
  2. this got released one week after the decision to make the UK ‘shit-scared level’ publically accessible
  3. it supposedly makes people feel ‘more secure’ by making them wait longer at airport checkins

What it does go to show is just how shit the current security checks are when you get to an airport. In fact, let’s face it, they’re all there to make the public feel safer. “Oh, terrorists can’t get on our flight, because we’ve been checked once, and all our stuff’s been X-rayed.” We’ll just gloss over the entire farcical fact that once you’ve gone through that X-ray machine, you’re in the food area, where you can get served meals with metal cutlery (order a steak – see what you get to cut it with!), buy perfume bottles you can shatter into heavy glass knives, and buy gift sets with the dreaded nail file and/or scissors.

At the moment you’re not allowed to take on most of your hand luggage, instead it has to be checked in to the hold. Now OK, that’s fair enough. But hang on, um, if there are explosives in that hand luggage, they’re still going to be putting it on the sodding plane!

And on the subject of explosives, OK, you’ve uncovered this plot to blow planes out of the sky. Right. You’ve buggered up the plans and announced them to the world, but the current security scare is because “there might be people we haven’t detected yet”. Now, any prospective terrorist who’s got a brain cell won’t be heading to the airport. Oh no. They’ll be going to the train station, or the bus station, or the motorway service station, where there’s no security, and causing chaos that way instead. If they’ve got the explosive, they’ll use it – just not on a plane. That’s not cynicism, that’s common sense.

Personally I’m a total cynic, and don’t believe this “plot” at all. It does, however, provide a viable story (which could equally be made into a Hollywood action movie) for the resultant media hysteria, as well as the security forces being able to say “Look, we’re great, we broke this ‘plot’ – we need more money in the next budget so we can keep on breaking up these plots” and for the government to trolley out the same old shit about “we need ID cards, so this sort of thing won’t happen, and it’ll be easier to process people through airports etc. Oh yes it will. Honest” It works on the slightly warped logic that people will feel safer because we’re “stopping terrorism”, and we’re aware of these plots to kill people, so we’ll tell you all about it, scare the shit out of you, and you’ll fucking welcome the extra security measures and totalitarian surveillance that we bring in on the back of it. In fact, you’ll bloody well want to have your lives on camera, your calls listened to, your ID stamped in a barcode on your forehead, because it’s Special Home-office Intelligence on Terrorism.

Or SHIT for short.

Half a Million

Posted: Thu 10 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: D4D™, Thoughts | 3 Comments »

Well – the day after D4D™’s fourth birthday, the word count goes over 500,000. So that averages out as 125,000 words per year on this site (excluding Rants, Thoughts, etc., which the word-count doesn’t include).

Apparently, the “average” hardback novel contains somewhere around 100,000-150,000 words, so in theory that means that D4D™ roughly works out as a novel a year. Blimey.

Of course, D4D™ was never intended as a scheme to get a book deal – that’s no disrespect to those people who do, because I just think good for them, but it’s not really what I was ever aiming for. But still, you can see why publishers are trying to get book deals and so on out of bloggers, if that’s the kind of word-count they’re putting out…

Workflow

Posted: Thu 10 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised, Photography, Technology, Thinking About... | 7 Comments »

Yes, I’m afraid I’m going to be banging on about iTunes, Picasa, JPEG vs Raw, and so on again. Because it’s all come up in the last week, Workflow has been on my mind a bit (and there’s some work-related stuff behind the scenes as well) so it’s all ending up as a bit of a brain dump.

Personally, I can be bloody disorganised. Well, that’s not strictly true. I usually know where things are, what needs to be done, when it needs to be done by, and how I’m going to do it. It’s just that I can be very “last minute” about things – particularly when it’s all to a deadline. It’s something I know – and acknowledge – about myself, and that I know I need to fix, or at least learn to handle better.

So anyway, I working on organising myself a bit better. But that’s not what this post is about. Oh no. Instead it’s about file structure, and file organisation instead. You lucky people.

You see, Gordon has said a couple of times that certain bits of software (iTunes, Picasa etc.) mean he no longer needs to know where files are – the software keeps track of it for him, and – for him – that’s fine. Unfortunately, doing that kind of thing drives me utterly fucking crackers.

Because I know where I put stuff, and I know (pretty much) what is where. I know that all my music sits in c:/music, but then I know that under that it’s kept in a file structure, so it goes c:/music/[band]/[album name]/[tracks] , and I never, ever have a problem finding where the stuff is that I want. To me, that’s organised, because I don’t need to fuck about thinking “is it in that folder? Or is it (iTunes, I’m talking about you here) in ‘compilations’? Or in some utterly random other place?”. I don’t need to use Google Desktop Search, I don’t need to Search for files. I think I use the “Search for files” function in Windows maybe once a year. If that. I know where my stuff is.

With photos it’s similar. Everything sits in c:/photos. I know, it’s unimaginative. But it’s easy to find. Then I name folders with where I was, or the subject of the photo series, and all the photos from that session/day/trip go in. If it’s been a holiday, you’d find it in c:/photos/[trip name]/Day [number] . I’m bad in that I don’t rename the files individually to say what’s in them – I should, but I don’t. But I know what’s where, and I can usually find the images I want when I want them. And again, to me that’s what being organised is about.

Yesterday, Gordon wrote

WHERE the files are doesn’t matter. HOW iTunes structures the folders doesn’t matter. As long as you can find the MP3s in iTunes (which is where the ID3 tags come in) then why do you care that an album is stored in ‘compilation’?

To me, it does matter where the files are. I want to be able to find them, to use them outside of that one specific application. For my music stuff, I can play it on the PC using RealPlayer, but I also use another program to write the music files to my MP3 player, or yet another one to write them to the phone so I can use that. For my photos I can use one program to view the thumbnails so I can select what I want, I can use Photoshop – or Paintshop Pro, or ImageMagick, or Corel, or whatever – to edit those photos, I can write them to a CD/DVD as backup, or I can transfer them using FTP to another site. Because of the way I work, I do need to know where the files are. I don’t want to be wasting time figuring out where Application A has stored them so that I can find them with Application B, C or D and use them in that.

So yes, it’s my workflow. Maybe I should be more flexible, or something. But because I do use different programs for different things, I want the files that I use to be in the same place, in my own organisation. Not in some arbitrary thing that one program uses, and then insists I have to use because it uses it. It’s a personal perspective, but I don’t like having workflows and decisions forced on me, whether it’s by Arsehole Bosses, or programs.

Maybe I’m a dinosaur. Maybe I’m a control freak. I don’t know. What I do know, though, is that at no time soon am I going to be letting a fucking program tell me it’s storing stuff according to its own structures where I can’t find the bloody stuff easily without using a search to do so.

Newbie

Posted: Thu 10 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Work-related | Leave a comment »

This morning a new web developer has joined the company, and came to the office.

Unfortunately…

  1. no-one here knew he was starting
  2. he doesn’t have any equipment here, because of a)
  3. no-one knows what he’s supposed to be doing, or which team he’ll be working with
  4. how to get this stuff sorted, as no-one’s yet turned up in the London office

Good, innit? And wow, what an introduction to a company. “Oh no, we didn’t know you were starting, we don’t have a PC for you, and we don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing. Get hold of Arsehole Boss? We’d love to, except we don’t know where he is, and his mobile’s switched off“

BossBitching

Posted: Thu 10 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Geeky, Work-related | Leave a comment »

(via Gordon)

I swear, BossBitching.com is not one of the sites I’ve written of late. Honest.

Although God knows, I wish I’d had the idea…

Another Year

Posted: Wed 9 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: D4D™, General, Getting Organised | 2 Comments »

So yes, as you’ll see up in the title bar, D4D™ is four today.

1,461 days ago I started writing this thing. Nearly half a million words later, in just over 3,710 posts, it’s still going strong.

I don’t know if I ever really expected to see four years in this. It started off as a braindump, and a plan to see whether I actually could keep up my interest in a project – something I’m renowned for, getting bored with a project once it’s done, and moving on to something else. Of course, with something written like D4D™ you have to ask yourself whether it’s ever truly finished.

  • Four years ago I was just starting out with D4D™ and blogging in general. It was a phase, an “I wonder if…” moment, and I didn’t really have any clue what I was going to do with it, no “theme”, no nowt.
  • Three years ago I was sorting out moving house, and I’d just started working for a council, in their web department (with Stinky®)
  • Two years ago I was in Norfolk, with Herself and her family, and still working for that council, with Stinky®, but starting to think about moving to live with Herself.
  • One year ago I was working for the company I’m still with now, the Arsehole Boss was on his way to being kicked out by the Board (an auspicious, if ultimately ill-fated move) so all was well on that score, cursing the Mambo CMS, and contemplating security announcements. Oh, and just coming up to passing my driving test.
  • And now I’m still with Herself, planning on moving house to Norfolk, sorting out life, working for an Arsehole, and waiting for the paperwork and confirmation that I’m starting work with a council, in their web department. Hopefully this time without Stinky®

I wonder what I’ll be writing here in a years time?

One things pretty much for sure , though. I’ll still be here.

Valuations

Posted: Wed 9 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Travel | Leave a comment »

Over the last two days we’ve had two estate agents round to value the house. It’s been useful in a lot of ways, as it’s given us the knowledge of what still needs doing (very little, other than some cosmetic crap, really) and the price they expect us to achieve on the place – which is very good news.

I’m not going to blether on about house prices, nor am I going to say what the house is currently worth – besides, all the improvements on the place have been the work of Herself, and I’m just a Johnny-come-lately on the entire thing. Yes, I’ll be reaping some of the rewards, in that the equity on this place will help fund the new place, and will let us take a fairly decent step up (or in my case, “on to”) the ladder. And one of the joys of that is that we’ll also be needing some extra gubbins from the solicitors to say that Herself is putting in £x more than me, and that if we do split up, she gets that extra money before anything else is taken into account. Which is fine by me – in fact I think I was the one who suggested it first – but well, I’m still allergic to paying more to solicitors than I have to…

In a lot of ways it also makes the entire moving process a lot more concrete. It’s a solid step along the way, it’s an acknowledgement that yes, we are going to be moving on – and that’s definitely a good thing.

So yes, it’s been an interesting experience. We’re fairly sure we now know who we’ll be using, although some of that still depends on negotiation of fees, contract terms etc., but yeah, unless things go horribly wrong, we’re fairly well sorted on that now too.

iTunes 2

Posted: Wed 9 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Getting Organised, Weirdness | 5 Comments »

So, in yesterday’s post, Gordon commented that he’d had iTunes running for three years without a problem. Great, Bully for you. I will, however, just point out this comment he made on my earlier post about iTunes being a piece of crap that insisted on ordering things its own way, rather than some form of logic involving, oh, say a folder structure.

I used to have all my MP3s in a similar structure. Once the files are in iTunes though I don’t care where they are but that does mean you’ll need to tag the MP3s.

OK, so it’s run fine for three years. But the start-up was a pain in the arse, because of having to re-tag and edit all the files that iTunes can’t be arsed to do automatically.

As that post I wrote showed, ten days ago I’d only just started with iTunes. So I ended up with 6,000 files I needed to re-edit. Frankly, fuck that – I want a piece of software that “just works”, not some fucking hunk of junk that insists on me changing my workflow to suit it. So I uninstalled it, and went back to RealPlayer, which “just works” and suits me fine. I’ll maybe use iTunes for buying tracks, but I’m more likely to do that now through the website. (EDIT : Turns out I need iTunes installed to use the iTunes store)

But – hang on – RealPlayer’s now missing a buttload of tracks. Half the files have disappeared, and it’s saying they’ve been deleted off the hard drive. So I check – off to c:/music/faithless and – what the fuck? – there’s only two albums there. Which are, funny enough, the ones iTunes had no problem with. So where’s everything else?

Luckily I’d still got a total back up on the old PC, and was able to restore the full music collection. But it still took five-plus hours to transfer everything back across the network. Oh, and why does iTunes insist on ripping new albums (by one artist, not “Various”, before anyone asks) into a folder called “Compilations”? Or is that just something I screwed up somewhere along the line?

Maybe it was a coincidence, and nothing to do with iTunes. Maybe it was just a fuckup, or (as Gordon implies) me doing something wrong. But whatever, I won’t be using iTunes to “manage” my music again.

JPG vs RAW

Posted: Tue 8 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised, Photography | 5 Comments »

In a post I wrote last week, Richard asked me a question.

Do you shoot JPG or RAW images. I understand that RAW images need more post-processing on your computer, but are there quality gains to be made by doing that?

Way back in November ’05 I wrote a bit about image manipulation, JPG, and RAW and basically said that at that time I was still using JPG rather than RAW.

And to be honest, that situation still hasn’t changed. I still shoot in fine JPG rather than RAW – and I’m probably going to attract howls of derision from other photographers now for saying so. But I just can’t get into RAW. I know it gives me a greater flxibility, a greater range of data and image information, and can allow me to do a lot more, and resurrect data from blown-out areas of a photo. All of which JPG just can’t do – you take the photo, and really that’s it (well, unless you want to spend a lifetime in Photoshop® doing image cloning, airbrushing, resampling, and all that bollocks)

It’s the workflow with RAW that I just can’t be bothered with, I suppose. And maybe that’ll change once I’ve done a set of photos and had them all fucked-up and blown out without the details I want. But so far – and we’re talking about five years of photos here – that hasn’t happened. Yeah, there’re a couple of images where I would like some more data, and where sections have blown out because of light/white conditions. But those sections are small, and it’s only when I’m looking at entering those images for a competition or something that it becomes an annoyance. And even then the annoyance is a minor one.

If I were taking shots of an important event – a wedding, for example – then I’d probably move over to shooting RAW + JPG, to make sure I’d got a backup for a one-off event. For the normal stuff I do, I’m quite happy to just keep using Fine JPG at the moment.

Maybe as time goes on I’ll get to a point where I do need to use RAW. I hope I’ll be able to identify when that time comes, and then I’ll probably also invest in some decent software to handle/edit RAW files, rather than just Photoshop (Sorry, Gordon, I just can’t get into Picasa at the moment either) but for now, JPG suits my needs just fine.

Plasma

Posted: Tue 8 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Animals, Cynicism, Domestic, Thoughts | 5 Comments »

When I was walking Hound last night, it was getting dark, but quite a few people still had curtains open. (God that makes me sound like a perv, doesn’t it? Ah well)

Anyway, one thing I noticed while out was quite how bloody ugly a lot of the new wall-mounted plasma TV screens actually are. They’re hard to miss, to be honest.

So first of all, wouldn’t it make sense to – well – close curtains etc.? Otherwise surely you’re just advertising “Hey, we can afford (or at least get the credit for) a big 40″ plasma” ?

But also, to me they’re just intrusive. I don’t want to lose half the wallspace in a room to a fucking TV. Great, it’s thin, and can hang on a wall. But why would I want it to? Personally, I much prefer to take up wallspace with prints of photos I’ve taken, or that other people have taken. The TV can sit in its proper place, in the corner of the room.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just some kind of Luddite, but I simply can’t see the appeal of hanging a TV off the wall, and letting it dominate the room.

Truth

Posted: Tue 8 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Green, Thoughts | 2 Comments »

I just saw this (sadly unattributed) quote, and thought it summed up a lot of the problem (in corporate terms) for green energy in general…

We will have solar energy as soon as the utility companies solve one technical problem — how to run a sunbeam through a meter.

Carriers

Posted: Mon 7 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Green, Sweary, Thoughts | 6 Comments »

So, Tesco are getting customers to earn loyalty points by not using new plastic bags in a move designed to cut waste, eh?

First of all, it’d help if when you do the (supposedly greener, as you’re not driving to the supermarket, and they can do multiple deliveries on one run) shopping online, they don’t deliver everything in fucking plastic bags. Particularly when you end up with so many bags with just one bloody item in them. That’d help a lot more.

And why not “just” make bags that actually, you know, biodegrade? Rather than lasting for the next 150 years in a sodding landfill? Waitrose had them at least fifteen years ago, and they were photodegradeable – slight flaw, as on sunny days they did have a nasty habit of breaking before you got home – but still, it was done fifteen sodding years ago.

If Tesco (and all the others) were actually bothered, instead of just paying lip service to the entire Green thing, then they’d buy in degradeable plastic bags, or do a far better job of promoting their “bag for life” scheme. (which seems to have done a bit of a disappearing act of late) But as it is, well, it’s just a buzzword, a theme for the moment, and so long as they’re seen to be paying lip service to it, and so long as it doesn’t actually cost them a fucking penny, then they’ll be all for this kind of bullshit PR stunt…

Crystal Web

Posted: Mon 7 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: D4D™, Geeky, News | Leave a comment »

So, 15 years ago yesterday, the Web was really born. Happy Crystal anniversary, Internet.

I first got online properly back in about ’92-’93, which was through a JANET line from Oxford University. A whole 9.6Kbps ( 9,600baud ) – for a university computer centre. I went on a couple of bulletin boards in the US, and while it was OK, and really pretty impressive to be able to be doing computer stuff trans-Atlantically, but still, well, it wasn’t really all that great.

Then in ’96 I worked briefly for a medical company doing some of the first websites. They were promoting their stuff internationally, and created a website to do it. And the beast started from there. Before long I was doing websites, and had my own personal one. (Thankfully, time has since deleted that monstrosity from history) I moved on to work for another company that did online versions of various academic magazines, and worked with SGML and XML. And since then, for the last ten years, I’ve been working on websites. And for the last four I’ve been writing D4D™ too – which is pretty scary in itself.

CAPS LOCK

Posted: Mon 7 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: D4D™, Thoughts | 3 Comments »

I wonder, do some people just not realise how fucking annoying it is to KEEP CAPS LOCK ON when writing comments?

The comments here from last night are a perfect case in point. I’m debating going in and changing it all to proper case. But then again, that’d ruin the impact…

Dumping Off

Posted: Sun 6 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Getting Organised | Leave a comment »

And now the old PC has bitten the dust and been taken to the same dump as the Shuttle boxes.

This time it’s a truly old Compaq PC with a 1Ghz Athlon processor. The hard-drive got completely reformatted and repartitioned yesterday, once we’d taken off all the old data we might possibly need (which is now sat on yet another spare hard-drive) followed by installing Linux on it. So fairly secure and with data removed. Of course, it still won’t go in the same dump pile as the PC, so it’s going in the mankiest shittiest bin bag I can find – probably along with this week’s collection of dog-shit. Classy.

So now everything’s been moved onto the Dell PC, and all seems to be working fine. I’ve got rid of a hell of a lot of stuff along the way, but yeah, it’s all a lot more organised too. Can’t be bad.

Applications

Posted: Sun 6 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Travel, Weirdness, Work-related | 2 Comments »

Isn’t it funny how things work out?

Since being offered the council job in Norfolk, I’ve been sounded out (and the application’s currently being assessed) for two other ideal jobs, including one that’ll pay me similar to what I’m currently on, but for working at home! Oh, they insist on one trip to London per month, but other than that they currently seem pretty amenable to someone working from anywhere in the country. So yeah, pretty much ideal – considering they even pay for the broadband line…

And then the Norfolk paper turned up on Friday with two more jobs that’d suit me down to the ground. So applications are in for those as well.

It’s always the way, though – or is for me, anyway. Get offered one job, then about four others come along, and normally I end up having to decide between about three offers. Still, there’s worse ways to live, I suppose…

Yuck

Posted: Sun 6 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Photography, Weirdness | Leave a comment »

via Pix

All I can really say is Blech. Caterpillar hell.

Painting

Posted: Sat 5 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic | Leave a comment »

Bleh – fuckin’ decorating. Fair enough, it’s just doing one “tidy-up” coat in a couple of rooms, and all that kind of stuff, and it’s about the final touches for getting this place ready to sell, but bleh, I still bloody hate decorating.

But I suppose it’s all in a good cause, preparing for the move and so on, so feh, could be worse I guess.

Revisiting

Posted: Sat 5 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Thoughts, Travel | 1 Comment »

You know, sometimes it’s really weird, looking back on what might’ve been.

Because of a post elsewhere I was just looking at a couple of places that I had interviews at for management positions. We’re talking about at least ten years ago now, but still, looking at things like the Crinan Hotel and the Cluanie Inn make me wonder what I could’ve been doing now, if I’d taken that kind of job on.

Mind you, I also could’ve had a great deal of fun managing Duff House…

Technological Progress

Posted: Fri 4 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Getting Organised, Work-related | 2 Comments »

I was saying to Herself this morning, I’ve discovered a fairly major problem with the new PC.

As it is, it runs a Pentium D 3Ghz Dual Core processor, which basically means it’s faster than shit off a warm shovel. Everything is fast on the damn thing, particularly after upgrading from a distinctly old 1Ghz Athlon chip, (in fairness, itself bloody fast at the time I bought the thing, back in ’99/2000) and having 3Gb of memory doesn’t half help on that score too.

Thing is, last night I was working on the laptop. Which runs a 600Mhz Crusoe processor, and has 512Mb of memory. So in comparison to the PC, it’s bloody glacial, and as such incredibly annoying – particularly when I have to wait while it sods about with Gmail and a couple of other windows, and takes forever to swap between them.

Therefore, the problem with the new PC is that it’s making my laptop look old, slow, and tired, and as such it means that replacing the laptop is slowly going up the priority chain…

Eggs and Baskets

Posted: Fri 4 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Well, I’ve now withdrawn my application for the other job I was supposed to be interviewing for on Monday. I don’t yet know how they’ll take it, nor whether this will turn out to be one of my less good decisions. But at the same time, well, it feels like the right thing to do.

There is another one I’ve just applied for, but that’s because it’s perfect, regardless of what we end up doing, or where we end up living. I’m not going to say much more about it right now, as I want to get more information first, but on initial sight, it’s – well – perfect.

As for the one I’ve just stepped down from, there was just something that didn’t ring right to it. I’m not entirely trusting of a company that refuses to discuss pay structures, and when they also say that I’d be spending a lot of my time on-site with clients, establishing what they wanted from a site, taking comprehensive notes, and then going away to develop it – well yeah, it sounds OK, but it also sounds very sales-based, and that’s just not something I’m overly interested in.

So *shrug* , we’ll see.

Unsuccessful

Posted: Thu 3 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Getting Organised, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Arsehole Boss has managed to avoid me all day – an at least semi-impressive task, given that there’s only eight of us in the office – but any time I see he’s free, he’s always “about to do something” which he perceives as important.

It should be pointed out that this includes such hyper-relevant stuff as installing an Xbox 360 in the new “staff lounge” (ex-meeting room) so it’s nice to see where his priorities lie.

In truth, I’m not all that bothered. It just means that I’ll do everything I need to as an email tomorrow to AB, the CEO, and the head of HR, and it’ll just be official, instead of working through word-of-mouth. Because, of course, with the office move all the important (well, relevant, anyway) people are now in London, which means us lowly developers don’t get to see them. Great in most circumstances, but utterly fucking shit when it comes to things like wanting to see the buggers, in order to try and sort out a decent leaving package…

Still, roll on tomorrow – it should make it more fun, and in some ways it actually works to my advantage, as it’ll conveniently illustrate why I feel I’m being sidelined, and my position made untenable in the company…

Hmmm

Posted: Thu 3 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Thoughts, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Anyone would think Arsehole Boss is avoiding me.

Maybe the phrase “I need to talk to you” is scary?

Shuffling About

Posted: Thu 3 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Work-related | 1 Comment »

So OK, we didn’t move offices in the end. (The admin and management people did, but so far the developers have been able to stay put) However, that doesn’t mean Arsehole Boss is happy.

So instead we’ve all had to move desks within the office “to make space for the new people when they join us” – whenever that may be.

Really I think it’s just disruption for disruption’s sake. But there we go.

Finite time. Finite time. Finite time.

Backing Up

Posted: Wed 2 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Since I don’t yet quite know what will happen once I tell work I’m leaving, I’ve been working in ultra-paranoid mode this afternoon.

As such, I’ve now got a complete back-up of everything I’ve done with the company, as well as making sure I’ve got everything else I’ve been doing at the same time. I’ve deleted all the useful information (passwords etc.) to the non-work sites I administrate, and made sure there’s no reference to them on the work PC.

Maybe I’m paranoid, maybe I’m not. But I figure well, if they tell me to go immediately, I don’t want to hang about while trying to copy files etc. – which’d look pretty dodgy, to say the least. Far better to do it today…

Hedging Of Bets

Posted: Wed 2 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Work-related | 1 Comment »

And isn’t it just typical? Get one offer, and then get an interview for another job, in the same area(ish) on Monday.

More money, too.

Aargh, the decisions, the decisions!

Waiting

Posted: Wed 2 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Thoughts, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Well, now I’ve got what I want – and I still can’t quite believe I’m going to be heading back to working for a local authority – it comes down to when to tell Arsehole Boss. Actually (and rather unsurprisingly) I’m quite looking forward to it.

However, because of the office move, he’s only going to be in this office two days a week – fortuitously, one of those days is tomorrow. So I think I’ll tell him then. Should be interesting, seeing what the reaction is.

There’s a lot of things I need to go into, and a couple of options about how I leave, but we’ll thrash those out tomorrow, I hope. And then it’s just figuring the logistics of me moving up to Norfolk before Herself, and how we go about all that crap.

But for now, well, I’m just relaxed, and happy. I know that my work here has a finite limit – even if they decide to be shitbags, it’s still a finite limite – and that makes any amount of corporate idiocy tolerable.

Success

Posted: Wed 2 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Travel, Work-related | 9 Comments »

Got it.

A wage-cut from the current place, but I can sort that out no worries. In fact, if I’m honest, it’s a bloody large pay-cut. But
there’s always ways to supplement income., and frankly so long as it gets us up to where we want to be, I can live with it.

But all the same, I got it. Yay me.

Heading Towards 500,000

Posted: Tue 1 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: D4D™, Geeky | 1 Comment »

Now here’s a scary thing. If you look over on the right, you’ll see a thing about “D4D™ contains [x] words”

Currently it’s just gone over the 495,000 mark – which means that sometime soon I’m going to have written half a million words on d4d™. That’s a pretty impressive figure, or at least I think it is. And because it doesn’t take into account the rants and thoughts, I’m actually already well over that half-million figure already. It’s just I never did a word count on them, so I don’t know exactly what the figure is.

Anyway, it’s not meant to be a milestone or anything – I never set out to write half a million words, and be done with it, or anything like that. And really it’s just a geeky counter, with no real relevance attached to it. But all the same, to me it represents some kind of achievement, to have written that many words – and blethered on in general – for nearly four years (four years exactly, on August 9th) so while it’s ultimately irrelevant, I still find it worth noting.

Or something.

Working Out?

Posted: Tue 1 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Health | 2 Comments »

Hmmm, I’m really not sure how this one’s going to go. Anyway – up ’til now, my gym visits have always been after work – it’s been easier that way for a number of reasons, and also means that Herself and I meet up at the gym, and I don’t need to get the train home.

Today, though, I’m doing something different. I plan to go to the gym in my lunch hour. I must be fucking barmy. But we weren’t in the mood yesterday for the normal gym visit, and I figure that maybe I need to change something in order to motivate myself a bit more to go.

I’ve no idea how it’ll work out – in theory it’s a good idea, and should allow me to go more often while I’m here. And I might as well take advantage of not being in London, and instead still being at the original office. It’s just that, well, going to the gym in one’s lunch hour is just a bit, um, dedicated, isn’t it?

Updated : Well, actually it all went OK – a lot quieter than the evenings (hardly surprising, but all the same) and all went smoothly. No problems getting on to any of the machines, all done in 30-35 minutes, then grab some lunch, and back in the office on the dot of the hour. And yes, I know, I shouldn’t eat straight after a workout, but hey ho.

Superman Ain’t Returning

Posted: Tue 1 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Reviews(ish), Sweary | Leave a comment »

So I suppose it’s only fair to give a slightly more balanced review than I did yesterday of Superman Returns.

First of all, it’s awesomely, glacially, earth-shatteringly slow. Which is never a good thing in a comic-book adaptation. We’re talking 145 minutes – two and a half hours – and my god, does it feel every minute of that. We weren’t the only ones to be saying “Thank christ that’s over” when we eventually stumbled to the end.

Some spoilers and/or discussion follow, so if you don’t want to know, don’t click for more… Read the rest of this entry »

Selecting

Posted: Mon 31 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Photography, Thoughts | 1 Comment »

One interesting thing we did over the weekend was spend some time going through some of the photo files/archives I’ve got from the last three years. The sheer number of photos is really quite scary, and I should perhaps consider killing/deleting some of the older ones.

Or, of course, I could just do a back-up of them, and dump them all to a DVD. That’d be sensible. But no, instead I suspect I’m far more likely to just keep them all on the hard-drive, although I do have a back-up of them on another portable hard-drive too. But it’s interesting to see the way my photography has improved and changed over the years – I’ve been taking photos properly now for about five years, which is pretty scary in itself – and the way things have changed with the use of different cameras and so on too.

As it was, we were going through trying to find the images we wanted to enter in to a competition, so there was quite a critical eye being used, and many fell by the wayside for just not being technically great, or for the lesser offence of just not being “right”. Whatever that means.

Anyway, in the end we narrowed down the list to about 20. Not good, but not bad either – considering that initially we had a list that numbered into the hundreds. So I’ve ended up running those 20 to Photobox, so we can have 6″x4″ copies of all of them, and then narrow it down from there.

Super / Massive

Posted: Mon 31 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Reviews(ish) | 4 Comments »

So no, despite good advice to go and still see Massive Attack, we didn’t in the end.

Instead, we went to see Superman Returns.

Man, what an utter bag of shit. Singer, that’s 145 minutes of my life I want back.

24 Hours To Go

Posted: Mon 31 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Work-related | 2 Comments »

Got a call from the agency this morning, and the council should let me know tomorrow. I know it’s later than expected, but they’re citing bureaucracy at the council end, which is nothing surprising really.

Yes, it’d be nice to know for sure – and now that should be happening tomorrow. But I’m taking heart from the fact that a) they’re keeping me up to date with what’s going on, and b) that they haven’t said “no”. Surely if it were going to be “no” they’d have said by now, rather than keeping me hanging on.

Right?

Techie Project Management

Posted: Mon 31 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Thoughts, Work-related | 3 Comments »

As well as all the other malarkey going on this week at work, the project manager who joined us at the start of June upped and quit. No notice, no information, just a letter saying “I’ve had enough, I’m not coming back”. Which was, to be frank, a bit of a surprise. Not an entirely unpleasant surprise, as she wasn’t best liked (and not just by me) but all the same, I don’t think any of us expected her to just up and leave.

Anyway, it made me think a bit more about the way companies and managers see their techies and developers, and particularly the way they manage them when it comes to projects, timetables, targets and the like. I was also kind of inspired (or at least the article made me think) by Positive Sharing’s “How Not To Lead Geeks“, which made an awful lot of sense when I read it.

I think most managers see techies as unruly, chaotic, and not really all that organised. Which is kind of amusing, when you think about the fact that most of us are based in logical processes, and deal with natural progressions and information flows every day. In fact, I think the real mind-block for most managers is in seeing that actually, we’re creative. We get a brief that says “we want a website that does x,y and z. Go away and do it.” Sometimes – as is my case with the current workplace – the entire brief is “We want a social network website. We don’t really know what one is, but we want one. Make it.” And that’s what I’ve done – and it’s bloody good, in general. Or was, ’til Arsehole Boss got his grubby mitts on it. But that’s another story.

So yes, in many ways techies and developers are actually creative. Yet most managers appear to see us as minions, people who need to be micro-managed, people who don’t have a creative thought in their bodies, because, well, they’re techies. They use computers. They don’t draw, or paint, or design clothes, or write. Well, write is the closest to what they do. But you get the idea – in the minds of these managers, techies aren’t creative, they need to be guided every inch of the way, even when (or perhaps particularly when) those managers don’t actually have the knowledge themselves.

So you end up in a project where everything is being counted, every day is set out in an order of micro-modules, with goals, achievements, chokepoints, setbacks, the lot. And I’ve yet to meet any techie – in fact, any creative type at all – who likes being micro-managed in that way, and who doesn’t kick back against it in as many ways as possible.

What techies actually need when it comes to management, and Project Management in particular, is to have someone who says “OK, this is what we need. You’ve got x weeks to do it. This is what it must do.”, and then maybe once or twice a week comes round to the developers, sits down and says “How’s it going? Anything I need to know? Are we still on target? Any problems?” and then keeps track of the project in that way.

We don’t need Gantt charts, timelines, task lists, analysis, checklists, test plans, Microsoft Project, or any of that. We just need to be allowed to do what we’re good at, and to have someone who can communicate that process up the line to meetings etc.

Really it’s a simple answer. Maybe I’m simplifying it a bit, I don’t know. What I do know is that I’ve only ever worked with one PM who could work like that, and it was also the only project I’ve worked on where all the techies were happy and motivated – and prepared to put in the extra hours if necessary-, and where the project came in early, under-budget, and with no problems at all.

So maybe it’s micro-management that kills creativity, and destroys projects more than anything else.

Flat

Posted: Sun 30 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Thoughts, Work-related | 2 Comments »

This evening we were supposed to be going up to Westonbirt Arboretum to see Massive Attack in a one-off outside concert.

However, I’ve woken up today feeling shit, exhausted, and just not in the mood for doing owt. We’ve been so busy over the last two months, and yesterday was really the first “day off” we’ve had in a long time. Even so, we spent a lot of time sorting out bookshelves in the office at home, looking at lots of other stuff that needed to be thrown out, and generally organising things.

So much is still up in the air – the council still hasn’t got back to me, although they’re apparently “waiting for someone to sign off the final documents”. On a positive note, at least they’re not saying “no”, so it’s all looking promising – but at the same time, they still haven’t come up with a confirmed answer, and no full offer. Which means that all I’m going on is optimism at the moment.

Herself is still applying for jobs, but the interview dates are still at least a month off, realistically.

So we’re just in a kind of limbo at the moment. It’s a situation I hate being in – once I’ve made the decision to move, I just want to get on and do it. All this waiting around, waiting for job information, having to keep on going in to a place where I truly despise the managers/owners, it all just gets to me. I want it to stop, so I/We can get on with the next phase, can move and get started on the new place.

It’s frustrating, and it leaves me exhausted. I’d love to see Massive Attack tonight, but I just can’t find it in me to think that seeing them is worth a minimum of a 90-minute drive each way…

iTunes

Posted: Sun 30 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, General, Sweary, Weirdness | 2 Comments »

With the new PC, I’ve also installed iTunes to deal with a lot of the music. This has turned out to be a bit of a double-edged sword.

For a lot of things, iTunes is great – burning CDs, building playlists, buying music downloads – all great. No problem with that at all.

However, it has fallen down big-style on one particular area. It just won’t read in all the files I’ve got. Well, I say that – it reads the files, but in a good 50% of the cases, it doesn’t get the relevant information. Now, Real Player has no problem with the files, and has always been able to keep track of who’s done them, which album, so forth, so fifth. But oh no, not iTunes. It won’t take into account the file structure ( i.e. they’re all kept in a file structure that goes /music/[Artist]/[Album]/[Tracks] )

So in order to make use of iTunes in general, I’m supposed to go through and re-identify about 6,000 files, enter in all the tag information – all of which is in the file structure, and it even shows in iTunes with the file structure identified. It’s just the information that’s fucked. Yet Real Player has got it all with no problem.

Have I missed something? Or am I just going to have to spend time going through the entire fucking file structure, editing all the ID3 tags for all the music that iTunes insists hasn’t got the right information?

Google Search

Posted: Sat 29 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: D4D™, Thoughts, Work-related | 4 Comments »

So D4D™ comes in at #4 for “how to not work for an arsehole” in Google, according to the stats I looked at today.

Ah, if only I knew that, I wouldn’t still be working for Arsehole Boss, and before that Twunty Manager, and before that, Stinky.

How do you manage to not work for an arsehole? Go self-employed. And even then you might still be doing so…

Frustrating Things

Posted: Fri 28 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, General, Getting Organised, Work-related | 4 Comments »

OK, it’s going to end up as a bit of a brain dump. I was hoping to write out a far more reasoned/comprehensive post, but well, I failed. Sue me.

So instead, what you’re going to get is a brain dump of things that are currently annoying me more than they should…

  • People who have no consideration for others. : I get really annoyed by this – it’s not difficult, that if you (for example) use up the last of the toilet roll, you replace it with a fresh one, rather than leaving just the carboard tube. Or if you use the last of the milk, you go out and buy some more. It’s not difficult – but so many people seem to have no thoughts on that score, so long as they’re not the ones that are affected
  • Waiting : OK, I just want to know about the job I interviewed for last week. I know, they said I might not hear ’til today. But just get on with it, I want to know. (Yes, it’s a selfish perspective, but sod it)
  • Incompetence : (It’s just taken me four attempts to spell that rightly) What with the office move/non-move/move/partial-move/non-move, and the efforts of other tossers this week, I’ve really had enough
  • Timescales : Time just seems to be racing past at the moment, and I’d like it to slow down a little bit, please. Deadlines and events are coming up at a disturbing pace, and there just doesn’t seem to be enough time to get it all done

Edited in the name of pedantry above and beyond the call of duty There’re There’s probably others too, but they’ll do for now…

Working Week

Posted: Fri 28 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Getting Organised, Weirdness, Work-related | Leave a comment »

A display of the way the company “works”…

  • Monday : According to company lore, we’re moving offices in a week’s time to London. Three new people – two developers (one web dev, one application dev), one admin-type techie- start work in the current office, all on the understanding that we’re moving to London. All three live in London, and two have just moved to London primarily because of the new job.
  • Tuesday : As described here, it’s a U-turn, and all of a sudden the web development teams are staying in the current office, while everyone else moves to London.
  • Wednesday : All change again – the web development team are going to be based in London for a month, as the newly built team won’t be at full strength ’til September, so web stuff can be done in London, then moved back to the current office in September. During that month, the web people will all work on temporary computers, or perhaps laptops.
  • Thursday : All change. Again. Now all the developers, both web and application, will stay in the current office. There’s no need for them to do the month in London. And it’s just the office admin and non-techies who will be based in London.
  • Friday : Who knows? I’m sure I’ll keep everyone up to date as the day goes on…

New Book

Posted: Fri 28 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, General | Leave a comment »

You know how sometimes something really trivial happens that just brightens your day?

Yesterday it was the arrival from Amazon of “Soul Kitchen“, the new book by Poppy Z Brite. Fantastic!

Upside Down

Posted: Thu 27 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Geeky | 2 Comments »

(via Slashdot)
I’m sorry, but I think this is absolute genius. Got someone using your wireless network at home that isn’t supposed to be? Or who’s within range (a neighbour, for instance) of your network, and using it for free?

Turn the internet upside down. Geeky in the extreme, but funny as hell all the same.

Blocked

Posted: Thu 27 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: D4D™, Thoughts, Weirdness | Leave a comment »

I don’t know why, but my brain’s just not working right today.

I’ve got three posts in “Draft” version at the moment, and I can’t get the right wording for any of them. I hate being like this – thankfully it’s not a common occurrence. However, when it does happen, it drives me nuts.

I know what I want to say, I just can’t think of the best way to phrase it. I need to dump my brain somewhere, and for once D4D™ isn’t the place…

Bugger

Posted: Thu 27 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Own Business, Travel, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Actually, last night’s meeting went quite well – and I didn’t upset too many people. Then again, I managed to activate the self-censoring part of my brain, so the expression “Workshy bullshitting incompetent” didn’t pass my lips, no matter how many times I thought it.

The real pain in the arse was that I got a late train back from London to Reading, which eventually came in 15 minutes after the last train to Bracknell had departed. Arses.

So yes, a taxi home, in a thunderstorm. Thirty-fucking-five quid later, I was home…

I don’t mind too much, as it was primarily my fault for not paying attention to time etc., but still, it’s that kind of thing that can really knacker one’s profit margins if you’re not careful…

Bullshitters and Incompetents

Posted: Wed 26 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Getting Organised, Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related | 3 Comments »

I’m off for a meeting tonight in London – the same private website I’ve been working on (and occasionally ranting about) over the last month or so.

It’s all ended up being consistently last-minute, with no real organisation, and a whole bunch of clowns who say they can do their stuff, but so far that conceit has been repeatedly disproved. Which, as regular readers may have noticed, drives me utterly crackers. I know it shouldn’t, that I should be used to it by now, but well, I’m not.

You see, I come from this background where if I can do something, then yes, I’ll shout it from the rooftops. I’m not overly good at being modest – but when it comes to this stuff, I’m bloody good at what I do. And if I don’t know how to do something, then I either a) find out, or b) say “No, I don’t know what you mean by that”. Which seems – to me – to be a pretty sensible way of dealing with life in general.

So when other people tell me “Yes, we know what we’re doing, we’ve done it before”, I tend to believe them. And then I get pissed off when it turns out that actually, they’ve no fucking idea what they’re talking about. Particularly when, by doing things wrong, they then fuck up the stuff that I’ve written already.

Yet somehow it’s me that’s in the wrong. I don’t know if it’s because I just get on and do stuff without fucking it up, or just that these people expect me to talk as much bollocks and bullshit as they do, but if I get pissed off at their incompetence, it’s my fault. I haven’t figured the logic of that one just yet. Maybe I’ll let you all know when/if I do suss it out.

And in the meantime, what’s the best option? Do I just assume that when people say they can write websites, or do certain types of code, or – well – anything, really, that they’re actually lying, and thus utter cunts? Do I save myself the time and stress, by just assuming that everyone else is incompetent? No, probably not – because then I’m just stereotyping, and last time I did that I got accused of being patronising, because I simply assumed that the person I was talking to actually didn’t know what the shit they were talking about.

It’s a no-win situation.

Maybe I should just not let myself get stressed by fuckwits and bullshitters. Yeah, like that‘s gonna happen…

Planning Ahead

Posted: Wed 26 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Getting Organised, Work-related | 8 Comments »

File under “Has to be seen to be believed” :

You are Arsehole Boss. On a whim, you have decided to move your company from its current offices to ones in London, for no real reason except that you no longer want to be in the current location. You have signed the contract for a year’s lease of the new office. You still have a year of lease on the current office, but hey, that doesn’t matter, because you’re moving to London. You’ve spent the money on the current lease already – it doesn’t have to show up in this year’s accounts, so who cares?

Three days before everyone in the office moves to London, and all their equipment etc., you suddenly think to do a headcount, and figure out how many people are going to be in that London office.

The London office has room for 12 people – maybe 15 at a push. Your current plans involve a company that has 30-35 people within the next three months. You think “Oh shit”

All of a sudden the office that was going to be abandoned and left empty has a use again. And some of the people who you’ve been giving job offers to, with the explicit location of “London” are going to be messed about, pissed off, or plain change their minds when you get round to telling them.

Laugh? I almost shat myself. You just couldn’t make this crap up – and if you wrote it as a comedy, everyone would say that the characters and situations were unbelievable.

Graffiti

Posted: Wed 26 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Travel | 7 Comments »

Seen on the M4 last night :

A rental van from Hertz in front of us, with the graffiti on the back saying “My Knob” above the Hertz logo.

Very childish, but not one I’d seen before. And didn’t have a camera to do it justice. Gah.

Most Odd

Posted: Tue 25 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic | Leave a comment »

You know, sometimes customer services things can be really bizarre. For ages you don’t get anyone who’s decent at all, and who all drive you utterly insane. Then all of a sudden you get a splurge of semi-decent ones, although you’re still stuck with the knowledge that it’s far more likely to return to the status quo, rather than becoming the norm.

Anyway, about a month ago we got a quote for a replacement garage door, as the current one has been knackered for at least 18 months. However, when it comes to selling the house, any buyer would object to the door, so we might as well get it done now. Absolute bog-standard door, nothing special at all.

At the time, the company (the National Door Company) gave us a quote for about £360, which included VAT, delivery, installation, and taking away the old door once they were done. Pretty damn good price, for all that, so we went ahead and got it booked in to be done today.

Herself was going to be at home to deal with it when they came in the afternoon. However, it turns out they arrived earlier than expected. And they’ve fitted the door, dropped the keys through the letterbox, and buggered off, job done. Talk about painless! Of course, now we have to pay the final dollop, so we’ll wait to make sure the invoice is correct before singing their praises too loudly, but on current evidence, they’re a bloody good company, and have got their shit sorted out. Which is definitely a novelty.

Shatter

Posted: Tue 25 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness | Leave a comment »

Hmm, maybe this is just me as well, but if you saw workmen heaving on a sheet of glass in order to pull it from its frame (we’re talking about a sheet of glass probably 8 feet high and 10-12 feet wide) would you decide to walk behind them as they were pulling with all their force?

The stupidity of some people – or maybe it’s just the completely blinkered lack of awareness of surroundings, I don’t know – just befuddles me. This morning I’ve seen not just one person do this, but seven or eight. The window is being replaced because the blackout film on it is bubbled up and knackered, but it’s one huge sheet of glass, and if it had shattered (as it eventually did) while some numpty was walking past, and they’d been hurt, you can bet that said numpty would’ve been first on the line to the personal injury lawyers, and it would never have been that numpty’s fault for walking past people obviously having a problem with a bloody big sheet of glass.

I despair.

Holiday In The Sun

Posted: Tue 25 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Travel, Weirdness | 4 Comments »

OK, now this one befuddles me a bit – and every time I read the words, I still don’t get the concept behind them.

Who the hell would actually go on holiday to Beirut?

What’s next? Parachute holidays to Afghanistan? Fire-fighting trips to Iraq?

Depressed

Posted: Mon 24 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Work-related | 2 Comments »

Do you ever have a day where you finally realise that actually it is everyone else that’s at fault?

I’m very loath to make sweeping judgement calls like that usually, but today’s been one of the very few days where it actually ends up coming through as the only sane answer.

On the one hand I’m working with a private client, and their designers who swore they knew what they were up to, and really good web programmers – yet have come up with a design for a home page that is, um, entirely an image map. Oh, and they don’t know “how include files work”, and can’t understand how I’m using them in the site architecture. (for the non-geeky I should point out that we’re talking really simple concepts here, such as the site navigation being put in an “include” file, which means you just have one file with the navigation in, and include it from every page you write. Even the syntax is simple – “include(‘navigation.php’)” Rocket science it ain’t)

On the other hand I’m still working in a company that thinks that upping sticks and moving the office to London, when most of the people who work for the company are based in this area, primarily because it’s a whim of Arsehole Boss and the new(ish) Chairman, can in no way be seen as forming the basis for constructive dismisal tribunals. Oh, and that they can just sack people, rather than going through the – contracted – disciplinary procedure of two official verbal warnings, two written warnings, and then you can be sacked. Apparently, this doesn’t apply to them, and they can do what they want.

I’m currently considering a campaign of shit-flinging, which would include reporting them to

  • the board
  • the venture capital people
  • Inland Revenue
  • Customs and Excise
  • and maybe the Anti-Terrorist hotline, if I feel really vindictive
  • And anyone else relevant I can think of

So yes, today is one of the days where I end up figuring that maybe I’m the only semi-sane one around here. And let’s face it, I can’t be entirely sane, because of the sheer amount of shit I’ve been putting up with…

Addendum : I should point out that this post is not making out I’m perfect, because I’m not, and certain other errors fuckups have since come to light that’re entirely my fault. However, I can fix them in ten seconds (and have done) while everyone else is still pissing and moaning and being utter fuckin’ numpties. So I still rest my case , although with the proviso that I know I’m not perfect either. So there.

Flying Kites

Posted: Mon 24 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Thoughts | 1 Comment »

Had a wonderful sight at lunchtime today – a red kite floating above the place where I eat my lunch.

No, not just any old red kite – that’d be dull – I mean a red kite as in bird-of-prey, shitehawk, scavenger – but still a beautiful sight to see against a summer sky.

Dumped

Posted: Mon 24 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Geeky, Getting Organised, Sweary | 2 Comments »

Well, yesterday I finally dumped the two Shuttle boxes I bought. I got the first one a long time back, in October, and it was a cunt. Never worked, and we finally established that the motherboard was fucked. Nothing worked on it, couldn’t install an OS, and ended up testing the memory, the hard drive, the processor, the optical drive, everything. No joy.

Shuttle wouldn’t replace it, and nor would the supplier, MicroDirect – despite repeated letters to both, they both just put their hands in the air, shrugged, said “Not our problem, mate”, and because it was a self-build system, they pretty much insisted it must be my fault, and I didn’t know what I was doing. Smug cunts.

Anyway, glutton for punishment, I ordered a replacement Shuttle box, this time from Dabs. Some people have said they’re useless fuckers, but when it comes to ordering stuff from them, I’d have to say that they’ve been OK with me. Somehow, I managed to get another box that didn’t work, and had another motherboard problem. All the components, and some new ones, got tested, and no fucking joy.

So I gave up, and ended up ordering a PC from Dell, which is an absolutely storming bit of kit. And I’ve been able to add in pretty much all the components I bought for the Shuttle boxes, with the exception of the processors – Dell use intel, the shuttles were AMD 64-bit processors.

Despite repeated contacts with Shuttle, they’ve absolutely refused to acknowledge any problems with their boxes, even on evidence of everything I’ve tested.

I’ve spent about £600 on the boxes all told, and there’s fuck-all I’m going to get back for them. So now the two boxes have gone to the dump, and I’ve just had to write the loss off. However, what it does also mean is that I would never recommend a Shuttle box to anyone. Maybe – just maybe – if you can buy a system that’s pre-built, and sold as a unit, then OK. But a DIY kit? Don’t touch Shuttle with a shitty stick. In my experience, their products are crap – beautiful, a great idea , but ultimately crap – and their customer service is worse – well, if something non-existent can be deemed to be worse than crap.

And am I fucked off about throwing £600 of stuff on the local dump? You bet your arse I am – but sometimes even I just give up the fight, because I know it’s one I will never win, and in fact never even get a draw on. In this case, it’s just not worth fighting any more. Even when that leaves me almost as pissed off as the battle did in the first place.

You’ll Never Put A Better Bit Of Butter On Your Knife

Posted: Sun 23 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Green, Thoughts | 2 Comments »

One of the best print adverts I’ve seen recently is for Country Life butter. (Most people will probably best remember Country Life for it’s slogan that’s the title for this post, and the “buttermen” adverts)

The Ad points out that Anchor (their nearest rival in the market) is made in New Zealand, then shipped over in frozen containers across half the world. It’s a bloody good point…

Canon

Posted: Sun 23 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Photography, Weirdness | 2 Comments »

I knew there was something I hadn’t installed on the new PC, and today it came to me. All the drivers and software for the EOS20D – no drivers, no software, nowt. Ooops.

And just when did I discover this? Yep, when I was trying to move some photos around. Ain’t it always the way?

And then when I looked on the Canon site, it’s got all the bloody updaters and revisions for the software, but has it got the original files? Has it buggery. Cue a mad hunt through the CD Graveyard – really must organise that a bit better at some point – and eventually found the relevant CD.

So now I’ve installed all the original programs etc., and then I have to update them all. It’s fucking bizarre.

Ah well.

Knackered

Posted: Sat 22 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | 1 Comment »

Ah, the joys of overnight thunderstorms. Three o’clock this morning, and Hound starts scratching the walls, going crackers – yep, it’s lightning. After half an hour of just the lightning flashes, then comes the thunder, and one high-strung dog goes orbital. She ends up sleeping – well, lying – under the bed, trying to burrow to Australia to get away from it.

Then came the rain. She was OK with that – and it was wonderful, feeling the way the air temperature just dropped like a stone as the rain fell. Absolutely fantastic.

By 5am Hound was calm(ish) again, and we managed to get back to sleep. For a while…

PDF

Posted: Sat 22 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Charm School | 3 Comments »

(via YorkshireSoul)

I know it’s infantile, but I absolutely love this. It’s not often I actually do laugh out loud, but this was one instance where it happened…

PDF file vs. Paedophile

Generation Terrorists

Posted: Fri 21 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: News, Thoughts | 2 Comments »

Why is it that so many countries – and in this case I’m referring to Israel, but it’s hardly a one-off – don’t realise that evicting people from their homes, citys, and homeland isn’t going to make them think “Oh, that’s OK then – at least we’re safe”, but is instead going to make these moved-on, homeless people think “Fucking Israel. They’ve kicked us out of our homes, our cities, our country. Fucking bastards”.

In short, aren’t they just creating the next generation of Hizbollah members, of anti-Israel fanatics, and of building up another generation of hatred in the area ?

At Home

Posted: Fri 21 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Work-related | 3 Comments »

I’ve managed to sort it out so that today I’m working from home. Initially this was because there was going to be a train signaller’s strike today, but turns out that’s been cancelled, only no-one’s actually told anyone at work. Which means that all the people who go in by train are now working from home. Heh.

Anyway, yes, as it turns out I could’ve gone in, but to be honest I really couldn’t be bothered to do so. That’s the payoff for treating your staff like shit – they just don’t want to make the effort if they don’t have to. Reap what you sow, and all that.

So yes, working from home. Which actually translates as “doing other stuff that interests me”.

Knobhead

Posted: Thu 20 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Work-related | 4 Comments »

Today, Herself isn’t feeling well, so she called in sick to work. As a result, I’ve got use of the car today, and took Herself’s set of keys instead of mine, as hers have the car master-key with remote lock/unlock etc. Just makes life easier in general.

However, because I’m a total knobhead, I forgot that this means I don’t have any keys to the office today. And it’s taken me two goes at the office door to realise this…

Confirmation of Suspicions

Posted: Thu 20 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Geeky | 5 Comments »

Great, another reason to not use PowerPoint.

Thanks, Microsoft…

Thames Water again

Posted: Thu 20 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Thoughts | 1 Comment »

So Thames Water are in line for a huge fine because of their utterly deficient customer service?

How much do we want to bet that they’ll weasel out of it one way or another?

New Paradigms Redux

Posted: Thu 20 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Thoughts | 1 Comment »

I’ve been asked to point out by Herself’s Sister that, despite what I wrote on Tuesday about GameTart.com, they’re actually still a useless bunch of fuckers when it comes to customer service.

She’s tried on multiple occasions (and we’re talking “in the tens” rather than “one or two”) to get hold of them and sort problems out, and so far has never yet been successful.

So while they may check out their own references on Google, they’re still a bag of shit when it comes to the important stuff.

Home

Posted: Wed 19 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: General, Travel, Work-related | 4 Comments »

Well, it all seemed to go pretty well, thank God.

I’ll know more in the next ten days or so – and hopefully sooner, rather than later – but the feedback on the day was positive, and it’d suit me nicely. In fact, yes, I actually want the job. *gasp*

The presentation went fine – considering I did it as a simple talk, rather than fucking about with PowerPoint® and so on. The specs of the interview had said “let us know if you need a projector etc.”, and I hadn’t done because I didn’t need one, but all the same, there was a projector, laptop, PowerPoint etc. already installed, set up, and running, but I didn’t use it. They seemed quite surprised and/or impressed that I didn’t – but as well as not being great with it anyway, I usually feel that PowerPoint presentations actually just show you can use PP, rather than necessarily understanding the subject, and what you’re on about. Which, in an interview like this one, is not an ideal situation.

So I did it on the fly, with some notes for reference to make sure that I didn’t forget anything, and that was all I needed.

But I still hate doing them.

Inventing Toys

Posted: Wed 19 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

(via Slashdot)
There’s an interesting interview here on Business Week with the man who’s now in charge of Mattel’s toy car section. That’s Matchbox, HotWheels, and Tyco – hardly small names.

What makes it interesting is that he’s talking about how technology can go into modern toys, but at the same time that it’s better to leave some things up to children’s imaginations, rather than getting tech to do everything for them. I think it’s a valid point, and makes for an interesting read.

Off again

Posted: Tue 18 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: General, Thoughts, Travel, Work-related | 1 Comment »

So tonight I’m travelling up to Norfolk for that interview tomorrow.

In many ways I’m really cool with it – I know that I can do the job with my eyes closed, and they’ve liked what they’ve seen of me so far. I also know there’s only two people going to interview, and that the odds are pretty good in my favour, unless I make a right arse of it.

The problem is that the first quarter of the interview is a presentation. I hate presentations, and have been known to make a right arse of them.

So there’s still plenty of room for me to be nervous…

Dressing Down

Posted: Tue 18 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Thoughts, Work-related | 2 Comments »

Due to the current dollop of heat, there’s yet another story in today’s BBC about the TUC wanting workplaces to allow workers to dress more casually.

Actually, it’s one of the things I do like about IT in general, is that we’re not constricted to working in suits, or even shirts and ties. The current company doesn’t really care at all what we wear, as we never have to see customers, clients, or whatever. For instance, today I’m in a T-shirt, and normal trousers. (I could go the shorts route, but prefer to not scare people too much) Of course, I’m also still wearing heavy Cat boots too, but well, no-one’s perfect.

Personally, I think that unless you’re facing customers or clients all day, then dress-code doesn’t matter a toss. I have worked with companies that insisted on suited-and-booted, or just shirt-and-tie, because “it made people more professional”. Maybe in some (or even most) cases it does – and I do agree that it’s good to have some kind of difference between ‘work clothes’ and ‘home clothes’, for obvious reasons – but I know that for myself, I work better when I’m comfortable, rather than when there’s sweat trickling down the back of my knees.

Tomorrow, though, I’m going to have to do an interview, which’ll mean fully suited-and-booted. Of course, the normal work dresscode won’t be like that, but tomorrow I expect to be spending an hour sweating like a perv in a playground.

New Paradigms

Posted: Tue 18 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, D4D™, Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Recently I’ve been very impressed by a certain aspect of two businesses – I hope it’s a sign of some companies who are beginning to grasp the power of the Internet, Google, and websites – particularly blogs, review sites and so on – but primarily I guess it comes down to Google.

The first instance involved a company called Game Tart. A while back I wrote two posts about them, as I’d been disappointed by their service once the initial trial period had expired. Anyway, the MD of GameTart obviously checked the Google results for the company name where, lo and behold, d4d™ is at about number 13. And then he left a comment on one of the posts. To me, that’s pretty impressive – I know it doesn’t take a whole load of work, but all the same, it shows a level of effort that, for example, B&Q‘s management have never bothered with.

The second instance occurred last night, and instead relates to Wheres Good. Someone had added a review of Pokeno Pies in Brighton although they’d added in an incorrect price. Again, one of the main people in the company had done a google search, where, yes, Where’s Good comes in at about number 18, had checked the review, and then emailed me to a) thank me for the review, and b) to ask to edit the price. Again, that’s pretty impressive – to me, it’s great to see companies that are getting the idea on this internet stuff, and beginning to realise how much a few simple pieces of effort can reflect positively upon them.

Leaving Cards

Posted: Mon 17 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: General, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Blimey, now there’s a turn-up. Apparently, I’m in the top ten results in google for “what can I write in a leaving card“.

Well, my advice would be this :

If you like the person, write something nice.

If you don’t, write “It’s been nice working with you, but it’ll be even better now you’re gone.” Or just “Go on, fuck off”. Either works.

Overtime – Outside

Posted: Mon 17 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised, Own Business, Work-related | Leave a comment »

One thing that was good about yesterday, and having to do the work on that site is that the wireless network I banged on about last weekend held up just fine, and meant I could spend the day sat out on the patio, writing web pages and so on, instead of being stuck in the office upstairs.

So really it didn’t feel hugely like work, although obviously my brain was overheating and working overtime still. But it was still a definite improvement on being sat indoors on a day like yesterday.

Once we’ve moved, a decent wireless network is going to be an absolute requirement – and probably an “outdoor room” so I can use it all when the weather’s good, should I end up primarily working from home…

Overtime

Posted: Mon 17 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: D4D™, Getting Organised, Own Business, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Well, Sunday was mainly taken up with finishing the first version of the site that reared up to annoy me last week. It took most of the day, but at least it’s completed now.

There’s still a lot to be done, and this version is just an alpha version, for people to look at and bang around on a bit.

But at least it’s got the people off my back for now, so my will to live is kind of back on track.

Hallelujah.

Time-Keeping

Posted: Sun 16 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Getting Organised | 1 Comment »

I don’t know how Hound does it, but she has the most amazing body-clock I’ve seen in a long time.

During the week, she gets a walk in the morning before we go to work – she likes it, and needs the extra exercise. Let’s face it, it’s almost impossible to exhaust a collie anyway, but two walks a day is a good way to make sure she gets at least some of what she needs. Anyway, these walks normally happen at 7.15 or 7.30 in the morning. Which is fine.

However, Hound doesn’t understand about weekends. So now we get woken up at 7.15 on Saturday and Sunday, with the collie equivalent of “Wake up! It’s time for my walk! Come on! You’ll be late!” This involves first coming upstairs, and standing in the doorway of the bedroom, ears aloft, tongue out, and generally looking happy/stupid. If that doesn’t get our attention, then she bounces on to the bed between us, normally managing to land at least on paw direct on the groin or bladder. If even that fails, she will lay between us, nose to nose with me, and using her paw to pat me on the face in an “I’m here, you know – wakey wakey” style.

I suspect it won’t be long before she understands the words “Fuck Off, Hound, it’s the weekend!”…

Cliched

Posted: Sat 15 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Animals, Cynicism | 2 Comments »

How unimaginative do you have to be, to call your two Dalmatian dogs Pongo and Perdita?

I saw a couple in the park this morning while walking Hound (which is her nom de blog, rather than demonstrating a lack of imagination) who had done exactly that…

Resolutions Update

Posted: Sat 15 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: 2006 Resolutions, Getting Organised, Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related | 2 Comments »

Way back at the start of the year, I wrote out a list of things I wanted to do this year. That list was as follows :

  • Photography
    • Macro Lens
    • Portfolio
    • Talk to Agents
    • Submit work to various places
    • Join local camera/photography club
    • Look at potential for “proper” photography qualification
  • Work
    • Get the three main sites up and running
    • Make them successful
    • Keep track of how they do
    • Reassess in Jan 2007 – if they haven’t worked, kill ‘em
    • Get more smaller sites done and paid
  • Writing
    • More “proper” writing
    • Longer pieces for d4d?
  • D4D
    • That bloody sweary filter.
    • Installing WordPress 2.0
    • Photoblogging?

So – where are we, as it’s more than halfway through the year?

  • Photography
    • Macro Lens – nope
    • Portfolio – nope
    • Talk to Agents – nope
    • Submit work to various places – nope
    • Join local camera/photography club – nope
    • Look at potential for “proper” photography qualification – nope

    So, Zero out of 6. Not good.

  • Work
    • Get the three main sites up and running – two of three, and other ideas too
    • Make them successful – getting there
    • Keep track of how they do – yes
    • Reassess in Jan 2007 – if they haven’t worked, kill ‘em – nowt I can do yet
    • Get more smaller sites done and paid – yep, two so far, and more on the way

    Much better – this one’s working out so far.

  • Writing
    • More “proper” writing – nope
    • Longer pieces for d4d? – nope

    Another Zilch

  • D4D
    • That bloody sweary filter. – nope
    • Installing WordPress 2.0 – nope, and not going to
    • Photoblogging? – nope, but may come up elsewhere

    And another one.

So at the moment it’s really not looking all that good for the list. I need to get my finger out a bit, don’t I? I know/hope that once we’ve moved, things will calm down a bit and I can get on with some of this stuff a lot better. But well, for now, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Change of Direction?

Posted: Fri 14 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Depression, Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related | 1 Comment »

There are some time periods where I really do love working on websites, and getting everything together in the way it should be. Sometimes those time periods are months, sometimes they’re only weeks, days, or even hours.

Currently I’m not getting any of them at all. The combination of the current “proper” workplace (which uses one of the loosest definitions of the word “proper” yet known to man) and the current set of external clients has conspired to bring me to a point where, frankly, I fucking hate what I’m doing.

No, I guess that’s not fair. I still enjoy hacking about with sites, HTML, CSS, databases, SQL, and all that crap. I do enjoy – even love – doing that. I know, I know, that’s incredibly sad. Don’t knock it.

However, the people described above are conspiring to make me hate the work side, the people I work for, and bosses in general. That’s not really anything new, if I’m honest.

But all the same, right now, when I’m looking at a weekend of shit work, because some fucking idiot who doesn’t know what they’re talking about, and has brought their site launch forwards by two fucking months, and when the crap is at least neck-high (and rising) at work, and it just makes me want to jack it all in and say “Screw it”. I don’t tell them how to design a fucking house, yet they seem to see no problem in telling me how to build a website.

In fact, in my lunch-hour today I was doing a lot of thinking, and I’m pretty sure that the next job I get is going to be one where it all either works out and comes together, or I have to look at either a) going back to being self-employed (although that still leaves the issue of fuckwit cunt clients) or b) going for a complete career change – perhaps still doing my own websites like Wheres Good on the side, in my own time, but not actually working on websites full time at all.

And to be honest, I’m not exactly happy about being pushed into a position where that seems like a smart way of developing myself.

Good Policy?

Posted: Fri 14 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Weirdness, Work-related | Leave a comment »

OK, you have an ex-SysAdmin who has been fired, told he’s a useless cunt (in exactly those terms) and who you’ve now re-hired as a consultant to take you through the period where you don’t actually have a SysAdmin.

In the meantime, you want to take the site that SysAdmin wrote, and give it a new look – effectively, redesign it, but without changing any of the underlying functionality. It’s purely cosmetic, a “changing of the guard” type thing. The redesign is seen, company-wide, as being pointless, and a waste of time/effort, as the next big job is – um – rewriting the underlying structure of the entire site, as it’s currently a nightmare. However, this will take about three months. So first you want to do the redesign, before going and doing the serious work. Bear in mind, the redesign will take at least a month.

While this SysAdmin is back on contract, you plan to tell him to impelement the redesign of a site – the site he wrote single-handedly, over five years – and bear in mind, this site redesign is the main reason that the conflict arose in the first place. SysAdmin doesn’t agree with the redesign (and has been exceedingly vocal about it), thinks it’s being done for the wrong reasons (it is and that the necessary time to do it could be better spent elsewhere. (it could) And you’re going to insist that SysAdmin tests it all, and makes sure it doesn’t conflict with any of the parallel sites that all run off the same basic underlying code and templates.

Hmmm, why do I suspect that this site redesign is going to be an utter nightmare?

Good News

Posted: Thu 13 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Travel, Work-related | 2 Comments »

OK, so next Wednesday is crunch time – that’s when the interview is going to be held for the job I actually do want.

I’ve also got to come up with a presentation – a fifteen sodding minute presentation – which should be fun. I hate doing presentations, and avoid them wherever possible.

Still, it’s all looking promising so far – there’s only me and one other person been invited to interview stage. Fingers crossed, and some heavy thinking to do in the meantime.

Spammage

Posted: Thu 13 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: D4D™, Geeky | 2 Comments »

Over the last few days D4D™ has been drowning under a huge dollop of spam comments, mainly from two sites. Akismet wasn’t doing much to stop them, neither was SpamKarma2, and it amounted to something like 1,500 comments over three days.

To add to the fun, for some reason my WP admin section wasn’t allowing me to add things to the “blacklist” it’s got in its admin either, constantly telling me it’d failed some part of the page load. Which is weird, and I’ll be figuring that out more later.

Anyway, I ended up just having to get my hands dirty, and ferreting about inside the database itself in order to add the culprit domains to the blacklist. And since then, I’ve not had one spam comment from those domains, so I guess it must’ve worked.

Woo, and indeed Yay.

Weight Stuff

Posted: Wed 12 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Health, Resolutions | 6 Comments »

OK, I went to the gym last night for a “reprogramme” on what I do. It was supposed to happen last week, but well, I forgot my kit, and it all generally went a bit tits up.

So last night was the one. And I did OK – I’ve a new programme of work, which should be interesting. I nearly passed out on the rowing machine, but that’s because the instructor told me to breathe on each stroke (Hello Google), and once you start doing 34 breaths a minute – well, OK, once I start to do 34 breaths a minute, I end up hyperventilating. Which really isn’t much good or much fun, and doesn’t tend to do much for one’s health. Particularly when one almost bounces one’s head off the next rowing-machine along.

But anyway. The weird bit is this : Back in January when I went for the initial session my BMI was 30.1. I’ve since lost about a stone, and lost a lot of visible fat. So how come my BMI is now 33.3?

Or is it all just a load of old bollocks, and nothing I should worry about?

Demoralised

Posted: Wed 12 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Depression, Getting Organised, Work-related | 3 Comments »

OK, it’s official, I’ve now got to the point where I really don’t even want to come in to work. And it’s only due to get worse once the office moves to London.

Yes, the powers that be have decided that, despite our still having a year’s lease on the current office, it’s going to be “better” for everyone to work in London. Bearing in mind that most of the coders live in this area, it’s not exactly been a welcome decision. But of course the powers that be, particularly Arsehole Boss, want to be in London, so that’s where everyone has to be.

No-one’s considered having a small London office for The Tossers, and letting us just get on with our fucking lives here. Oh no.

And then you wonder why I’m wanting to move on? Ha.

On that score, I’ve been told I’ve definitely got an interview for a job in Norfolk. It’s just being decided when it will be. I know there’s just me and one other person going for it, having had a phone interview last week, and now it’s just fixing the time/date. So far as I’m concerned, sooner is far better than later…

Insuring

Posted: Tue 11 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Thoughts | 8 Comments »

You know one of the most depressing things around? Getting quotes for car insurance.

Up ’til now, I’ve been a named driver on Herself’s car insurance – it makes a lot more sense for the first year of driving, as that’s when insurers add on an arbitrary amount, just for having passed the test. Of course, the downside is that after a year’s driving, I still have no No Claims Bonus. Ah well.

Anyway, once we’ve moved – as and when it happens – to Norfolk, it’s most likely going to mean that we need two cars, which’ll mean the current one becomes mine, and another (smaller) one becomes Herself’s. And that means I’ve got to sort out insurance on the current one. So I’ve been getting quotes.

So far, MoreThan will cost me £646 , or £57 per month, and DirectLine will cost me £690, or £57 per month. (No, I haven’t quite worked that out either – I probably mis-read something)

Then I went to Norwich Union, just for a laugh. Their “Quote Me Happy” campaign has been laughably bad, and I know when I was looking for house insurance they were awesomely high – in fact, about twice the price of anyone else. So OK, same details, and *quote* – fucking sweet Jesus H Christ on a smelly warped pine crutch – £1532, or £140 per month?!?!?

Quote me fucking incredulous, more like. Now I can see why all the people in the adverts piss themselves laughing when they get their quote…

Anthropomorphic

Posted: Tue 11 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Animals, Thoughts | 3 Comments »

One BBC series that I do love watching is the Big Cat Diary. I’ve always been a fan of the big cats in general, and I find the basic premise of the series to be great, and make for fantastic TV.

But one thing really bugs me – it’s the way they give all the animals identities, names, and attribute human characteristics to them. I can understand (to a degree) why it’s done, and I suspect it’s actually very difficult to not do it, particularly when (as with one lion pride) you’ve been following them for 18 years. but I personally find it very distracting.

I’d rather know the facts, the information, etc., without the anthropomorphic extras.

But it’s still a brilliant programme.

“Normality”

Posted: Tue 11 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised | Leave a comment »

I can’t deny it, I’m really rather pleased that life is returning to normal again now.

No World Cup, no Wimbledon. Of course, there’s still the Tour de France, but I can live with that.

Still, it’s nice to be football free for a couple of weeks before the new season starts. Now it’s just a matter of sorting out Sky+ so that it’s got the normal programs being recorded again. Sky+ is great for that – it loses things after only one week, so if a normal schedule is disturbed by – for instance – fucking football, then everything goes tits-up. It’s a pain in the arse.

But well, we’re now getting back to normality, and that’s rather cool.

Fair?

Posted: Mon 10 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness | 5 Comments »

OK, before I get started on this one, bear in mind that I’m a self-confessed numpty when it comes to football, so I’m probably barking up entirely the wrong tree with this one…

Anyway – what I was thinking about, particularly in light of the end of the world cup, is why is the final result (assuming full-time and extra time have been completed) dependent on penalties? To me it seems actually quite unfair, basing it all on a “sudden death” kind of thing after two hours of play – particularly since the goals that have happened become irrelevant. (And before any smart-arse pops up with the comment, I know that the penalties thing only happens when it’s a draw, so perhaps the goals from the main match are now irrelevant – but bear with me on this, OK?)

So why does it go to penalties? Why not base the final victory on something that’s at least related to the game of the last two hours? Examples that spring to mind would be ball posession – that the team that’s had the most posession wins; or base it on fouls and/or dives – where the team with the lowest figure (either in the match, or in the tournament – which would be a nightmare of record-keeping, but would provoke rather less fouls, dives, and bookable offences, I suspect) wins at the end of it.

Surely those methods are fairer, or at least more relevant? To base the final result on penalties seems to be far more “luck of the draw”. Perhaps basing it on something match/statistic-based would be a bit of an anti-climax, I suppose – but it would still at least have a basic connection to the game they’ve been playing for the last 120 minutes…

Bum

Posted: Mon 10 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Thoughts, Work-related | 2 Comments »

Just got an email, didn’t get the job in Cambridge.

In some ways I don’t mind – it would’ve been a pig of a commute, and so on – but at the same time, well, it would’ve been nice to be able to tell the current place where to stuff it.

Ah well. I’ll be aiming to find out what the feedback from the interview was, but hey ho.

Email Resurrection

Posted: Mon 10 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Geeky, Own Business, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Gah, one of these days I’ll change my job title to “System Administrator”.

Following on from Arsehole Boss’s spectacular fuckup of the email server migration on Friday, it’s fallen to me to try and get back all the archives from the previous server.

And, amazingly, so far I’ve managed it. I have a complete set of emails for everyone in the company, all sat on my PC, ready to be sent up to the new email server. And, of course, I’ll then delete all of that information from my PC. *ahem*

Some small tweaks still remain to be completed – but for the moment, progress is being made. Which is novel.

Wireless

Posted: Sun 9 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised | 3 Comments »

I do love wireless networks when they work properly. Since moving, and being on NTL, I’d forgotten a lot of the fun that can be had with Wireless – for some reason my existing gear just hated being on a cable modem, and never worked properly. Well, to be fair I’m not sure if it was being on a cable modem that it hated, or the moving process – I suspect it was a bit of both, because a replacement box was fairly tits-up too.

However, since sorting out both the new PC and the Wireless Broadband, it’s been a joy again. I’ve just installed a new PCI card for the wireless networking on the new PC, and it’s gone in fine first time. Since then, I’ve moved down to be on the laptop, stuck in the USB adaptor (that was being used on the new PC ’til I got the PCI card sorted) and zap, it’s all connected up, and everything’s fine.

So now I can connect up quickly and easily using PC, Laptop, PSP, and mobile phone. Plus anything else that’s wireless enabled. And it’s all comfortable and set up nicely.

Sweet…

Technical

Posted: Sun 9 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Getting Organised, Own Business, Work-related | 1 Comment »

So, today is mostly being spent being a techie. There’s a large amount of moving files from Old PC to New PC, and finishing off installing all the crap that I regularly use, while managing to not move over all the stuff I no longer use (for instance, DreamWeaver).

Of course, the basics were already sorted, and probably were within 24 hours of getting New PC up and running. But now it’s all the other stuff. Oh, and installing another Gb of RAM, and the new PCI wireless card.

Alongside that, there’s a whole shitload of music to move from old to new, as well as something like 15Gb of photos. It’s not going to be a quick process.

Oh, and finalising the stuff for a nother website that’s starting to go live during the next week.

And FTPing to the new PC all the website files for the other cough websites that I’ve worked on, created, and/or continue to work on. Which as well as everything else is an exercise in remembering passwords. Fun fun fun, although SnadBoy‘s “Revelation” is fucking fantastic on that score.

Feted

Posted: Sat 8 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised | Leave a comment »

We’re out of the house for most of today, what with working on a stall for a village fete for the charity I’ve mentioned once or twice before, and then out in the evening having a family meal to celebrate my father’s birthday. (In a place I’ve never been before, so I can add it to Wheres Good too)

It’s one of those days – they happen every so often.

I half expect to be soaked during the day, what with it being the finals of Wimbledon etc., and the weather being what it has this week.

Oh, and on Sunday, Herself will be away, going up to Norfolk for an interview of her own. So it’s all coming together. But it’s going to be a manic weekend.

Not to mention the fact I’m supposed to have a large dollop of website up and working by Monday for a client. And that I haven’t even started it yet. The joys of a sub-zero motivational level. Still, it could make life interesting. Still, I’m sure I’ll have what they want when they want it.

Outta Town

Posted: Fri 7 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Geeky, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Ah, fantastic.

Arsehole Boss has organised a change of mail servers for the company, moving it all to a new server with a new hosting company. (well, with the hosting company we picked a while back, but hadn’t moved things like mail servers to yet)

No warnings, no information, just a call to say “It’s been moved”. At 4pm on a Friday.

However, as most people use IMAP instead of POP3, (Yours Truly being an exception to the rule) it means that most people’s mail records were held on the server. Which has moved. And not been backed up.

90% of the office has now lost all their mail records for up to the last eighteen months. All the mailing lists, auto-responders, mail groups, and forwarding etc has been deleted, with no real records of what points where, or why. In short, everything’s gone (unless you kept regular local backups, which of course 90% of people didn’t)

Arsehole Boss was warned repeatedly by ex-SysAdmin that this would be an issue, but of course AB knew better… And the chances of recovering any of that mail archive? Pretty much minimal, as only ex-SysAdmin has access to any of the backup data. Do we have passwords to get to it? Do we fuck-as-like.

All together now…

Oh, what a beautiful morning
Oh what a wonderful day…

Introductions

Posted: Fri 7 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic | Leave a comment »

A quick thanks to Karen and Pete for introducing me to their new addition, Bernard, today.

Now to hope that he quiets down, so they can get some much-needed sleep!

Much appreciated, anyway.

July 7

Posted: Fri 7 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts | 5 Comments »

OK, first of all, I’m not saying any of what follows to be denigrating to the people who did suffer in the suicide bombings on July 7th last year. I just want to make that absolutely clear.

However, how does huge media coverage of the memorial events make any difference? And why are we all being pushed into a 2 minute “memorial” silence for it? I don’t have a problem with the various news services showing the memorial events – personally, I think they should be private, for people who were involved and affected by the events, rather than this Diana-esque national outpouring of faux grief, but that’s my view – but I don’t see why entire breakfast programmes and so on had to cover the subject.

Maybe it’s just me, but the BBC and ITV programmes this morning seemed to be glorifying the acts of terrorism – and wasn’t that supposed to be becoming a criminal act? The BBC bleated on earlier this week about how a survey said that 13% of those surveyed thought the bombers were “martyrs” for “the cause”, yet now they’re going through the events in detail, showing how badly everything was affected. Is that not making the bombers, the causes of these events, into – to some minds at least – heroes?

I realise that the London bombs affected a lot of people, and I agree that there should be memorial services, events and the like. Should they be made national, with things like the 2 minute silence? Probably not. Should the memorial services be televised, with people’s grief and memories of the events made public, made into just so many more 3-minute filler items? No.

And how do the people who were involved feel? Surely these news reports, with video footage of the events, just brings it all back to life for them?

I don’t know. I don’t know anyone who was affected by the London bombings. I can’t speak from experience. What I do know is that the media coverage just leaves a really nasty taste in the mouth.

Pirates 2 – seen it

Posted: Thu 6 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Reviews(ish) | 1 Comment »

Well, it’s abso-flummin’-lutely brilliant.

All things considered, it’s not quite as perfect as the first one- but then, Disney knew what to expect, and that they’d be getting a huge dollop of money from it. Therefore it’s more scripted, more mechanical- but don’t let that stop you. It’s fantastic- Johnny Depp’s totally on form, Keira Knightley is still utterly wooden, but that’s nothing unexpected. The effects are awesomely well done, and well, the entire thing’s just great.

Oh, and swearword of the season? “Bugger“

Pirates 2

Posted: Thu 6 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic | Leave a comment »

Tonight, we’re off to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2. Incredibly childish, I know – but I can’t wait.

The trailers look fantastic, and I’ll be happy if it’s even half as good as the first one.

More about it later / tomorrow…

Thames Water – A Response

Posted: Thu 6 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Thoughts | 3 Comments »

A while ago, some of you may recall I sent a snotty email to Thames Water’s Customer Service People. For ease of reference, this is what I sent…

To whom it may concern,
If, as your current news story puts it, “Approximately a quarter of all leakage is on customers’ pipes.�, that still means that three-quarters of all leakage is on TW’s side of the pipes.
How does a utility company justify selling people a product, and then telling them they can’t use it?
How does a utility company justify leaks that amount to the equivalent of 6.6 million people’s daily usage ( using the DFID’s estimate of 135 litres per person per day ) every day ?
I’m just interested to know.
Sincerely
Lyle

In return, I today received this scintillating effort…

Thank you for your e-mail of 21 June 2006.

I note your comments regarding our water leakage rates and your concerns are understandable.

We know that we need to improve our leakage detection and repair rates and are working hard to achieve this. We currently have over 150 repair teams fixing leaks every day. We also have leakage detection teams working during the night to detect and pinpoint leaks.

OFWAT have agreed that we need to focus our attention on reducing leakage from our ageing mains network in London. We have been set very tough targets and it is not an easy task but we are determined to resolve this issue. The sheer volume of pipework means that we cannot complete this overnight and it will take time. We have, however, already made a good start.

During the early part of last year, OFWAT agreed a series of bill increases over a period of 5 years. We have been given strict guidelines on how this money should be spent and last year we began a #3.1 billion project to improve our services, including replacing thousands of kilometres of ageing water mains throughout our region.

In addition to the money we are already committed to spend on leakage reduction, the extra investment of #150 millioin announced by OFWAT will be funded by shareholders and will accelerate the Victorian Mains Replacement Programme to complete at least an additional 230 miles of new mains by 2010.

For the last 15 years we have been able to provide water services without any restrictions. However we must acknowledge that increased use of water in the home, population growth and climate change are placing increasing demands on our water supplies. To simply ignore these issues and refer everything to our own leakage rates would be irresponsible. Indeed, we have managed with similar leakage rates for the past 15 years without imposing a ban.

We need to employ numerous methods to safeguard our future supplies. We are working hard to increase sources of water, for example more boreholes to access groundwater and seeking planning permission to build a desalination plant to treat salt water in East London. We are doing all we can but we must ask our customers to work with us to conserve water. You may be interested to know that in Berlin, domestic water consumption is 115 litres per person a day compared to London’s 155 litres, although interestingly the prices there are approximately three times as high. Clearly this shows that there is room for water efficiency amongst our customers.

The simple fact of the matter is that this ban is as a direct result of the lack of rainfall and even if we were to repair every leak we would still be in a drought situation.

We do not seek to justify leakage; we are taking on the challenge to improve our services to benefit our customers.

I note that you refer to a particular point made on our website with regard to leaks on customers’ pipes. We use this information to highlight that not all leakage comes from our pipework, however, we wholly acknowledge that our own leakage standards need to be improved.

I appreciate your frustrations but trust that this addresses your concerns and explains our position.

Considering it didn’t answer any of the questions, and in fact studiously avoided being anything except PR flak, I’m currently debating the best response…

Prepared?

Posted: Thu 6 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Work-related | 4 Comments »

OK, here’s a simple one…

If you were applying for a job as a web developer, and you included a couple of sites you’ve worked on as showcase URLs for what you could do, wouldn’t you make sure that they were actually working? And not just a “new website coming soon” page?

Or is that just me?

You can tell it’s summer

Posted: Wed 5 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, News | Leave a comment »

Brilliance.

5. The cat is scratching the words “Shave me, shave me” on every available surface. The dog is writing letters of complaint to the design committee that dictated that panting rather than, say, unzippable pelts should be the main method of canine temperature regulation.

Stormy Weather

Posted: Wed 5 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

This morning, weather-wise, has been bloody marvellous. After a week of sweating like a perv in a playground, this morning the threatened storms broke at about half six, the full thunder/lightning works, and you could actually feel the temperature dropping. It was lovely.

Of course, Hound hates thunder, so she came and laid under the bed – one of her “safe places” – but other than that handled it all pretty well, I’m pleased to say.

So all told, yeah, a pretty good morning. Just a pity it’s been ruined by having to go into work…

Motorways

Posted: Wed 5 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Thoughts, Travel | 8 Comments »

Well, everything went OK yesterday with the interview in the end. I don’t yet know whether I got the job, but we’ll see – hopefully by end of the week.

Even the driving between Bracknell and Cambridge went OK, which was a pleasant surprise – two hours door-to-door each way, and I managed to avoid all the really nasty rush-hour crap, which is no bad thing at all.

However, it did make me realise just how much I hate tosspot truck drivers. I should point out, by that I mean “truck drivers who are tosspots”, not necessarily all truck drivers. But the sheer number of tosspot ones that are out there is really quite amazing. I lost count of the number of times the traffic flow slowed down to 55/60mph, because two lanes of traffic were taken up by fuckwit bastard truckers trying to overtake when they can only go maybe 2mph faster than the one they’re overtaking. Watching trucks overtake is like watching tortoises shag – it’s so awesomely slow – and fucking annoying too.

I just don’t see the point of it – in fact, I’d like to see motorways etc. with one lane specifically for trucks, and then to have them barred from overtaking. You get your place, you stick to it – after all, they’re all going at 56mph. And that way it frees up two lanes for normal traffic, rather than limiting all the cars to the outside lane, and thus fucking that up too.

This post has been brought to you by the number 56, and the letters C, U, N and T.

Getting Away With It

Posted: Tue 4 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, General | 1 Comment »

I can’t believe that Thames Water have managed to get away with not having to even pay a fine on their awesome leakage figures I wrote about a while back.

OK, so they’ve been “forced” (their words, not mine) to spend £150m on stopping leaks, but that’s what the shyster bastards should have been doing anyway. But oh no, tell them they might get fined, then let them off. They must be laughing all the way to the bank.

Spam of the Week

Posted: Tue 4 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Weirdness | 1 Comment »

Sometimes (as I’ve mentioned before) my spam turns weapons-grade weird. Today’s effort is one of those times…

Hello my dear friend
I was looking tharough the web few weeks ago and found
your profile. Now I decidead to email you to get to know
you better. I am comiang to your country in few weaeks
and thought may be we can meet each obther. I am pretty
looking girl. bI am 25. Do anot repbly to this address
direcbtlay. Email me back at olcl@snail4mail.com

Yes, I’ve always wanted to meet up with a random foreigner who can’t spell/type. <sarcasm>It’s my ambition in life. </sarcasm> And yes, the email’s left there too – I figure spambots might as well catch up with a spammers email for once.

Out for the Count

Posted: Tue 4 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Travel, Work-related | 1 Comment »

I’m away from my desk today. In fact, for most of it I’ll be driving to or from Cambridge, as that’s where I have an interview.

God only knows what they’ll make of me – but one that that’s good is that I don’t have to be suited and booted. Especially as it’s supposed to hit 34°C today. So I managed to wangle it so I can just turn up in “smart” but without doing the full suit gubbins. Works for me.

And I’ll write more about how it went once I get back. Yee-Ha.

Flash

Posted: Mon 3 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Geeky, Weirdness | Leave a comment »

When Flash™ goes bad…

This really has to be seen to be believed…

Barmy

Posted: Mon 3 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Health, Weirdness | 1 Comment »

This evening, I’ve an appointment at the local gym, where one of the trainers is going to put me through my paces, and figure out what I should be doing in order to keep on losing weight.

Today’s temperature around here is supposed to be around 32°C. I’m going to be doing a shitload of work in the gym. In short, I must be fuckin’ barmy.

I expect to be a sweaty puddle in the recuperation area by 7.15pm.

Stickup

Posted: Mon 3 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, General, Sweary, Thoughts | 1 Comment »

With the van that’s been parked outside our office for the last hour, blocking half the road, I’ve gone back to wanting to make up some stickers – with hyper-strong adhesive – that I can slap onto people’s windscreens, printed (on the sticky side, so they can see it when they sit in the car) with the phrase

“Thanks for parking like a cunt”

in very large bold print.

I know, I’ve proposed it before, but the desire is getting stronger and stronger, the more I work in this office and see just how cuntish these drivers are.

Mind you, in twunt-boy’s case, I’d also love to see some grumpy trucker (and that’s not rhyming slang) just barge past, and scrape all down the side of the van. Now that would be funny as fuck.

System Administration

Posted: Mon 3 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Geeky, Work-related | 4 Comments »

Sometimes you really have to wonder about this company.

Two weeks ago, Arsehole Boss sacked the system administrator, basically because the SysAdmin kept on disagreeing with Arsehole Boss. Yes, there was other stuff too, but that’s the basic thrust of it.

So this morning I get a call.

Arsehole Boss : Lyle, we need to find out all the root passwords to the servers.
Me : I’ve no idea what they are – [SysAdmin] never told me. He was the only one who knew them.
Arsehole Boss : But we’ve got to find them out, so he can’t get in to the system.
Me : Well surely we did that before you sacked him?
Arsehole Boss : Well, no.
Me : …
Arsehole Boss : Oh, and we need to find out where all the domain names are registered, and who to, and what the admin passwords are.
Me : [Sysadmin] was in charge of all that. I’ve never had to use the domain admin stuff. But surely we got that before you sacked him, as it’s all company assets, and, if he were being a cunt, he could set all our domains to point to porn sites, for example? And we then couldn’t reset them without the admin passwords which, um, we haven’t got?
Arsehole Boss : Yes. We need to get them before he does anything like that.
Me : Would’ve been easier when he worked for us, really, wouldn’t it?

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Connected

Posted: Mon 3 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Getting Organised | Leave a comment »

Well, yesterday was fun. The wireless networking got set up with the new BT Wireless Broadband account, and so far all has run smoothly. With the exception of the old PCI card I had in the old PC, which seems to have given up completely. At the moment I’m using the laptop’s USB stick wireless adaptor, and even that is running fine. I’m suitably impressed.

And once I’ve got a new PCI card for the PC, and installed that, all will be rosy. ’til we move, of course.But even then, well, I’ve now got the hardware and necessary gubbins, it’ll just be a case of setting up the BT line again. Fun.

In the meantime, though, we’ve got the PC connected, and the PSP and my mobile phone have also been able to connect just fine. This is going to be pretty helpful all round in the long-term, I’m pleased to say.

Shocking

Posted: Sun 2 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Geeky | 1 Comment »

You know, sometimes a company actually exceeds the requirements and expectations you’ve given them. OK, so you don’t really expect much from BT, and so expanding those expectations isn’t too difficult- but all the same.

In this case, they’ve actually connected up the Wireless Broadband ahead of schedule. Its just unreal. The router etc arrived yesterday morning instad of the expected Monday, and when I connected it up, it worked straight away. In fact, I’m using it now, sat in the garden, writing on my XDA. I *SO* need to get out more…

Credit

Posted: Sat 1 July, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Thoughts | 2 Comments »

Over the last few years, my credit score has been a nightmare. Not for any good valid reason, really, except that I moved around a lot for several years, changed jobs a lot, went self-employed, that kind of thing. Nothing wrong with any of that, except in the eyes of banks, and their credit-scoring crap.

So I’ve made do with a current account (obtained by dint of a minor miracle, and no small amount of bullshit bureaucracy) and the bank debit card. Which is fine. Oh – and an overdraft, which wasn’t so fine. In and out of it on a regular basis, but never over the limit.

Anyway, every so often I apply for a credit card, and fully expect to be declined. My credit score stuff is roughly zero – half the time they couldn’t find me on the records, or on the electoral roll, or somewhere else, and the other half it was the standard crap about “You’re self-employed? We want six years of audited accounts before we’ll let you have anything”. But I’ve only been in business two years, and the accounts fall below the Companies House level for requiring audited accounts. “We don’t care, we want six years of audited accounts”.

And then people wonder why I hate banks.

So, a couple of weeks ago, in light of various other developments, and talking to the IFA in Norfolk, I applied again. And lo, knock me down with a wafted feather, I got it. Bloody hell – I must be getting back on the radar again, or something.

It arrived this week – with a credit limit of far more than I wanted/needed. So now I’ll use it for one or two items per month, then pay it off. I’ll probably use it for a couple of larger items too, and pay those off over two or three months – still building up that bloody credit rating, after all – but that’s it. It’s not even being carried in my wallet – instead it’s safe at home in a locked drawer.

The only reason I’ve got it at all is to build up the credit rating. That’s it. I don’t want to live life on credit – and before Herself complains, I admit, I don’t see the overdraft as “credit” per se, although I should do. I like being able to pay for what I want when I want, but only so long as it doesn’t destroy me for the rest of the month.

That’s the way I’ve lived for the last eight or ten years, and I really don’t intend to change things now.

One Month And Counting

Posted: Fri 30 June, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Music | Leave a comment »

This time next month, I’m going to be heading to Westonbirt Arboretum to see Massive Attack.

Not that I’m counting the days, or looking forward to it, or anything like that at all. Honest.

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