Tag Archives: everyday

Bit of windows… bit of thought…

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Apparently I have thought that it’s cool to include some tech gripes with a random thought that doesn’t have to do with technology.  Sort of forces people who like one or the other, to read both… suckers 😛

I was bored at some point today, so I tried to define how people perceive confidence.  This is what I came up with… Confidence is having the sense of direction or a future movement beyond that of those around you.  So in order to give off an aura of confidence, people demonstrate or act as though they have somewhere to go (which is beyond that of the people around them) and they’re gong there with or without those around you.  It is at that point that people “latch on” or desire to go where you are going… This might be faulty logic or considered a description of some other trait, but hey.. I was bored and that’s what I came up with.  If you have a better description, I’m all ears.  Btw, Encarta defines it as: “A belief or self-assurance in your ability to succeed.”  I think that they fail in the fact that part of confidence has to do with responses/reactions from others…

Now, for the computer side of things… I was reading an SDK earlier today (yeah, a real joy, I know…) and I couldn’t help but think that the user interface for Microsoft Help (version 5) just sucked.  It makes you think that you’re in a browser, but lacks some features that I have grown used to.  For one, I would like to have the option to use tabs for different help topics.  This would be similar to the tabbed browser windows that Mozilla/Firefox provides.  Or even the tabbed view the VS.Net provides.  The other major thing that irritated me was the lack of history with the back & forward buttons.  Yeah, I can scan through the previous topics that I visited by just clicking the left arrow a bunch of times, but I want to be able to right click on the left arrow and see a list of the last 10 or so topics that I have visited.  Again, this would operate almost exactly like the back/forward buttons in a typical browser.  there… rant over.

Also, in office 2003, if you Alt+Click on a word, it’ll open up the “Look up…” window for that word.

Camera recommendation

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I want to publicly thank John Lam for going the extra mile and helping me out.  I sent him an email a couple days ago, asking him for some advice on buying a new camera.  I told him that I was looking to spend around $1000 and wanted to go digital.  I also mentioned that I have no real camera experience (my knowledge of disposables just doesn’t help me :).  So, if you haven’t seen his pictures yet, go have a look.  I think the detail and quality are superb…


The advice that he gave was excellent.  He basically covered all bases for where I want to go.  To start, he said that I should take a local one-day “how to use your camera” class.  He said that those types of classes are offered by a local professional and they teach you basic things like aperture, depth of field, basics of composition and how to correct light meter readings using my own eye or the histogram (feature of the camera).


Now for camera recommendations, he said that he absolutely loves his Nikon D70.  He said that it is around $999 for just the camera or $1299 for a package camera & lens.  He also mentioned that the Canon A80 is available for around $300.  He said that it basically just sacrifices “performance” features like fast auto-focus and low-light performance.  John went into a little more depth on why (mainly due to my inexperience) it doesn’t really make sense to pay more for a camera than what the D70 costs… It just seemed that I should be a professional photographer if I wanted something “higher” end…


Finally, he pointed out some places to go online to do some more research.  He pointed me to dpreview.com for reviews, etc. and to usefilm.com to see some of the results that some people get with inexpensive equipment. 


 

Musings from a porcelain chair…

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So, I had a couple thoughts come to me while I was sitting in one of my offices, today.


The first is about software… I think that the term “open source” is misinterpreted by some people. What a lot of people don’t understand is that many times, open source software is open because the author(s) just really like what they do. Granted, this is not valid for all programs or code that is open, but I think that it applies to most. To make the code open just shows that they are really proud of their creation.


I heard something today that made me lean towards that methodology (open source, joyous code) a little more. I heard that because a convenience wasn’t documented as a feature, it had no business being put in the software being developed. Now, I can see that deadlines must be met, but I also see that sometimes you need to impress the customer. After all, what good are deadlines if you have no customers… Also, I would think that if you can spend an extra hour or two implementing a feature that makes the software MUCH easier to use for the end user and will probably save them many hours of time, that feature should be implemented… This is probably just due to my ignorance in managerial roles and having the experience of freely developing my own software, purely out of joy/curiosity.


The other thought has to do with asteroids and other celestial objects… why don’t we attach DNA, information, possibly a solar map, etc to every asteroid/comet that comes somewhat near us. Apparently, they are moving way too fast for us to keep up with them for extended periods of time, and they definitely get further into space than we have been. So why not attach some information to the object, in hopes that it gets intercepted along its path. I would think that a civilization capable of getting near/examining a comet or asteroid, would also be able to view the information that we “stash” on it. Or at least realize that the objects that we stash on it are not typical of asteroids/comets. Then, that same civilization would hopefully be able to use mathematics to sort of plot a course to where we dumped the information onto it. That is where the solar map would come into play… say it’s just a 3d holographic type display that shows our solar system in the center of or more highlighted than near by solar systems… Anyway, this is just a thought of how we could sort of get the word out that we exist…

Puff the Magic Dragon revealed…

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I’m sitting at my computer right now, sort of recovering from an interesting night of drinking.  So many things went on last night including, but not limited to a water fight, dancing around an overturned jeep (probably thinking I was helping), head butting a girl (not on purpose), attending a random 30th birthday party, and sliding down a grass hill.  Oh and somewhere in there, I made it to four or five bars…

Anyway, somehow I began thinking of Puff the Magic Dragon and decided to Google for it.  I came across this newsgroup entry that sort of clears up the urban legend of Puff the Magic Dragon.  I was always brought up to believe that it was about smoking pot, but it’s somewhat interesting to find out that it wasn’t originally intended to be taken that way.

Possible evolutionary twist…

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Evolution is taking/going to take an interesting twist, I think… This specific twist concerns cosmetic surgery with human beings.  So, you take current American societal beliefs, people striving to be accepted or valued as beautiful.  Now, the way I see things is that the people getting cosmetic surgery, to alter their original genetic appearance, are probably going to procreate more with people further up in society’s status ranks.  I think that this has a tendency to “dilute” the public/popular gene pool from the desired result, though.  While one person thinks that they are procreating with an attractive counterpart, it is rather an unattractive person wearing camouflage.  Both the male and female can take one or both roles.  Thus, most times the need for “camouflage” (surgery to make more attractive) remains and unattractive offspring results… Now there are most likely exceptions to this, but I still think that it is a strong possibility…


 


Perhaps I should go patent the idea of changing someone’s gene makeup so that their offspring retains the traits/features currently displayed. 


 


 

Random thoughts about fun and age…

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I hope I don’t sit down at some point and think something like “the good ‘ole days are gone.”  Granted, there have been some fun times in my life, but if I start thinking like that, then I might as well pick up a shovel.  To think that I won’t have fun as I get older is ridiculous.  It’s just that the type(s) of fun to be had changes. 


 


This thought process has been sparked by an email that I got from a friend of mine.  He mentioned that he’ll be completing his (secondary) schooling (working at his undergrad for about 10 years) in another year or so.  I got the feeling that he thinks that life will be over for him after completing school. 


 


To me, it’s not over, it has just changed slightly.  One of the beauties of being out of school (and having a job) is that I’m doing what I currently like, full-time, and I actually have money to “invest” in the things that interest me.  College is supposed to round a person out, but I found it as more of a social benefit than anything else.  I met a wide variety of people (most not related at all to what I do professionally) and sort of improved my social skills while sometimes attending classes.  I am finding that I am “rounding myself out” more now than ever.  I am able to do the things that interest me without being tied down by wondering what people will think or monetary concerns. 


 


I know that at some point in the future (time is passing faster and faster), my lifestyle will change to more of a parenting role.  I might look back at my past and grin with what I’ve done, but at the same time, experiencing the beauty of discovery in my children will bring me even more pleasure.  And so the idea of “fun” changes again… The one thing that I do hope to keep in mind is even though I need to be a figure in my children’s lives, I shouldn’t forget to keep living mine…

Microsoft Certification preparation

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I have decided that I will get Microsoft certified at some point this year.  I’ve just come to the decision that it won’t hurt me to have certification(s) under my belt.  Ideally, I am going to go for my MCSD, but I’ll start off and see how it goes…


This is an initial roadmap of where I plan to go:



I think that the first three exams should go pretty smoothly.  I should only need to brush up on a few areas that I’ve just briefly touched in the past.  The last two exams might be more difficult, but I have done those tasks in the past.  If anyone has any tips/study resources, I’m all ears… Otherwise, I just plan to study on my own using some (free) web resources. 

First days at e.magination

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This week been pretty busy for me so far; I started my new job with e.magination and have been trying to have a social life, also.  e.magination has done a great job so far with making me feel comfortable in my new surroundings.  The people who I work with are very outgoing and friendly, but on of the huge bonuses that I do enjoy is that I’m not sitting in a cube.  I sit in a large room that has a series of big wooden desks; it’s pretty hard to explain so I sort of “sketched” the layout below.   Each ‘o’ represent where a person sits.  There are two of these giant wooden desk structures in the open area where I work.  Anyway, it’s quite nice, since I can just pop my head up and talk to the people around me.  Also, a the people around me are not developers, so it’s somewhat easy to get into “normal“ conversations with them… I think I prefer this over being surrounded by developers.  If I ever need to speak with a fellow developer, they’re not far away…


 


My first day started out with introductions to various people around the company, and just getting setup with internal systems, etc.  I was taken to lunch by my boss, which was an added bonus.  The introductions, etc lasted about 2 hours after which I was presented with some tasks to accomplish.  I have since been working on those tasks and am somewhat surprised by how I “was thrown into“/“jumped into“ all of this work so soon.  Tuesday started off with a meeting with the company COO.  He basically went through a company overview and general business direction and ideas.  So before I keep going on and on, I’m going to get back to my third day.


 


 


Desk structure


——-|——-


     o | o


       |


       |


     o | o


——-|——-


     o | o


       |


       |


     o | o


——-|——-


     o | o


       |


       |


     o | o


——-|——-

Babble babble…

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Cameron brings up a question about if kids blog or not.  I was sort of thinking along these lines for a little while and I suppose I should write something down.  The difference is that I was thinking that when I was younger, I never saw myself keeping a journal or diary.  I guess that plan sort of fell by the wayside, but I think the biggest impact that made me go ahead with a blog is that I don’t have to physically write.  I’m far more comfortable as and a much quicker typist, than I am a writer.  That and the readability (I tend to write like a doctor most times) allows me go back and read over some of the articles from time to time.  Not to mention that Cut/Copy/Paste is so much cleaner than eraser marks or strike through.  I do, however, enjoy knowing that my current thoughts are written down, rather than just fading into the ever re-structuring of my persona.  It’ll make for excellent reading in 10-20 years, I imagine.

I find it somewhat strange that people tend to keep diaries private (locked even) while on the other hand, blogs are kept quite open.  I think that people have a sense of privacy with blogs due to getting lost in the sea of web pages.  Because bloggers don’t necessarily see their readers on a normal basis, if ever, I don’t think that they mind that their “audience” reads personal details.  The other subtle benefit of blogs is that the people who read the blog might have a better understanding of the writer’s personality/history than some of the writer’s better friends.  So if a blog reader ever meets a blogger, they would know what to expect.  I find it somewhat similar to a musician getting on stage for the first time.  The first few times are coupled with feelings of nervousness and self-consciousness, but it gets easier with each appearance.  After a while, it becomes fun.

This brings up some interesting situations if a blog “fan” meets the blog writer.  One is that the reader could bring up personal instances of that bloggers life, and just start probing into details about those situations right away.  It would strike me as somewhat weird to have pretty much a stranger asking me personal questions… Maybe this is similar to what celebs have to deal with.  The other situation is that you could cut through all of the BS associated with getting to know someone, and just get on with a typical conversation as if long time friends.

Observations while on the road

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I found a couple other things out last night.  The first one is that there are no self-serve gasoline stations in New Jersey.  It is all full-serve.  While that might not come as a shock to some, it did to me.  Others might wonder why I prefer self-serve and I do for two reasons.  The first is that I was much quicker at figuring out the complex pump (heh…push the button for the fuel grade.  Whew, that’s hard) and getting gas into my car, than the amount of time that it took for the attendant to come over.  By the time the attendant came over, my tank was full and I was ready to pay them.  The second reason that I like self-serve is that I don’t “top off” my tank.  I think it’s pointless… why would I risk having the little bit of gas that I can fit in my tank get gobbled up by the nozzle, when that amount of gas really wont matter when I make my next stop.

The other thing that I wanted to comment on has to do with geeks and soda.  I’m guessing that Microsoft has a deal with Coca Cola because they only served Coke products.  They had diet Coke, Coke, and Sprite.  No more, no less…  The thing that made me curious was how many people actually prefer those products over say… Mountain Dew or even water.  I was always under the assumption that geeks preferred Mt. Dew, but maybe I’m a bit biased… I do not like Coke and would not have grabbed a bottle last night had there been another free choice for a caffeine supply.  Personally, I’m a water man… if I must; I’ll have Mt. Dew or root beer if looking for some flavor.