ramblings of a wandering nerd

I’ve been using a 13inch Macbook at home for pretty much everything since July last year. I’ve been doing a lot of web based things lately including a lot of Uni research as well as heaps of work towards some personal projects I can hopefully start talking about in a month or so.

But one thing that is really annoying me is the way Safari handles tabs. Unlike FireFox, you don’t seem to be able to do much with tabs once they’ve moved off the screen. WHY!

It seems impossible to close a tab that’s moved off screen, and also impossible to rearrange it. FireFox solved this with the ability to scroll across the tab bar. Safari doesn’t seem to have evolved that far yet.

Now the obvious solution is to stick with Firefox and I do have it installed so I might just do that, but I was trying to keep it real!

I hope this isn’t just Apple being stubborn, like the missing second mouse button, missing page up/page down/end/home keys. I shouldn’t need to have to use key combinations to do basic things I could always do on my PC irrespective of how uncool Apple may think it is.

While on the subject of Apple, with all this talk about Steve Jobs and his rumored ill-health, there seems to be a lot of doom and gloom surrounding Apple. It’s amazing to think one man holds the key to success for such a large organisation. CEO’s of course are a key component of large organisations but more for their unseen work with strategy and the internal workings of the business than their name. How often do we as the consumer attribute a the success of a brand we like to a single person?

If you look at other organisations/brands that we as consumers love, can you name their CEO without a quick google search? CEO of Sony (Playstation3), CEO of Nintendo (Wii), CEO of Microsoft (XBOX 360) …. well we all know the CEO of Microsoft because he’s a gigantic douche and we certainly don’t associate him with the XBOX360 (if you’re a 360 fan of course, if you’re not you may happily make that association). What about the CEO of your favourite movie studio, or perhaps your favourite car manufacturer. 

I sure can’t. So is Steve Jobs’ enormous influence and fan base a good thing or a bad thing? It highlights how good he is at what he does, or does it? Shouldn’t the company be more than him. Wouldn’t he be  a more successful CEO as the creator of an organisation capable of independent thought, one that will continue to thrive after he’s left?

Of course we all wish him the best, and indeed Apple for the future, and while I don’t think for a minute that it’ll collapse after he has gone, why does the worlds media even entertain that thought? Maybe they worry about history repeating itself? Perhaps there needs to be some serious work done within Apple sooner rather than later to transition him out?

Tags: Apple

I’m not often a direct customer of IT services at home. Sure I use google, facebook, internet banking, the odd airline booking, a web host and various other online systems but none of them are critical to me. If they’re not working I simply close my macbook and walk away. But as a uni student, especially as a remote one, I am a customer of the uni IT system. 

They use Blackboard and also have some kind of apache portal. It annoys the hell out of me when it doesn’t work because usually when I try to use it, I’ve set aside some time and specifically want to use it. Not only does priority get given to on-campus students (ie - outages and upgrades are scheduled at times when on-campus students wouldn’t be using them and off-campus students WOULD be) but sometimes it just doesn’t work at all. I’m currently waiting for my most recent semesters results so I’ve been checking once every couple of days. Currently (and has been the case on and off for the past couple of weeks) I’m not an enrolled student. Of course the helpdesk is on holidays so I’ll just have to wait some more. The chat system for tutorials is also pretty poor. 

The other thing I find amazing is that the actual Blackboard product is ugly. In a world of facebook, myspace and other pretty web20-y kind of stuff, young people (and those slightly older but technology dependent) expect pretty stuff. It’s a common complaint that I had, I’ve mentioned before the VOIP system we are looking to implement at work is also ugly. There are so many great examples now a days of solutions that are both useful and attractive, I don’t understand why we need to put up with ugly products.

I hope that these, and other makers of ugly software can get their act together and start beautification projects. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect aesthetically pleasing software in this day and age.

Well it’s here. another year almost gone, a new one on the verge of starting. I’m getting older but sure as hell don’t think I’m any wiser!

I spent Midnight 1997 (or ‘96) standing in a line trying to get in to a club in Darwin. We had been there all night but had to go and meet someone. We did the right thing and got passouts so we didn’t have to wait in line again, knowing we’d be close to midnight when we returned. Upon returning we were told we had female passouts! Who’d have thought! Incredibly annoyed we returned to the back of the line. That night I vowed never to do that again.

To this day I haven’t.

And tonight shall be no different.

A quiet night with friends knocking back a few beers as we welcome in 2009.

May you, your family and friends have a happy and safe New Year.

Tags: NYE

I read the Notes 8.5 reviewers guide on the train this morning and I found myself feeling somewhat angry. I I started my IT life with Notes. I used to have to check the replication logs for a couple of organisations we provided managed services for. I hated it. It was repetitive, boring and I didn’t know what any of the errors meant so I was forever asking for help. Then I got in trouble (long story) and was sentenced to a brand new Lotus Notes contract we’d just won with a huge customer (It seemed not many people wanted to work with Notes). As it turned out, it was the turning point in my ‘career’ and I’ve been with Notes ever since. I’ve loved it, I’ve hated it, I’ve laughed at the ridiculous technotes IBM have released and similarly laughed so hard I’ve almost cried at the worms that destroyed whole Exchange installations and left friends shaking their heads in dismay as they try to recover from the steaming pile of crap that was their Exchange deployment. 

But after about 5 years, the two senior engineers/architects whom I held in the highest esteem decided to make the switch to Exchange. I couldn’t understand it. I was baffled and annoyed. They felt Lotus had dropped the ball and to be honest at that time they had. There was practically nothing happening, nothing to look forward to and the Microsoft marketing machine was in full force. Of course, Exchange still doesn’t have an SQL back end but it’s come a long way and after reading the release notes for 8.5 I am starting to see where they were coming from. Now obviously Lotus are developing the Notes platform at record rate and good for them, but some of the things in the release notes are mind boggling. 

How can it be 2008 (2009 when it’s officially released) and they’ve only just added horizontal scroll bars for the calendar? That’s nothing to be proud of. The Domino Attachment and Object Service stinks of shared mail although they assure us it’s not. Assuming it’s not, why wasn’t this around earlier, Microsoft have been boasting single instance storage forever! Should we use it? As complex as Notes can be, the simplistic independence of the mail file (while costly on disk) is brilliant. Do we want a mail file riddled with links to an object store irrespective of how transparent it is? Importing and Exporting of contacts? Come on… Display the folder a document is in in the All Documents view? You gotta be kidding me? 8.5 and we’re only just seeing this natively? 

See why I was getting angry? I can keep going. Dynamic policies? Brilliant and why exactly wasn’t it introduced with policies in Notes 6? They’ve renamed the journal, quick someone call Washington! Auto-populated groups - Too little too late, I’d imagine every Notes shop on the planet of any size has written their own solution to this. Compress inline images, this has been a notes.ini option since 6 (or was it 7) and they’re only just adding it to the preferences? If you’re a Notes person I bet you’re a tad angry too.. admit it! 

Sure there is some great stuff in there (And once I get a gold copy to work with I’ll no doubt mention them here), but how much of it would you say is long overdue? 

Am I going to abandon ship and move to Exchange? Of course not, I still firmly believe it’s a superior product in the right environment but I hope that Lotus appreciate the customers they have, the ones that have stuck by them and have waited how many years for a scroll bar in their calendar?

Tags: IBM, Lotus Notes

There is so much I love about Melbourne. The cafes (coffee is my one true addiction), the pubs (although I’d prefer a pub in England any day of the week), the buildings, the parks, the weather, the fact I’m so close to everywhere, the fact that overnight delivery means overnight delivery and the variety of both activities and places to go. But one thing has become increasingly obvious as I travel to and from work during the xmas-new year week. I certainly don’t love the people. 

I’ve always enjoyed working over Christmas because it gives me a chance to catch up on work I should have done months ago. Less people at work equates directly to increased productivity. 

But beyond work, the trains are empty, the roads similarly quite, the pedestrian walkways are also empty. It’s sitting… SITTING on the train, driving without thinking about what the driver in front, behind or beside you is going to do, walking at your own pace with time to enjoy the view without having to avoid stupid people not looking where they’re going. Oh yes, this is my Melbourne. Empty! I feel like I’m the king of the castle. Some may see working during this time as a curse, punishment, but it’s not, it’s a privilege and I vow never to give it up! 

Over the next few weeks it will return to it’s previously chaotic state, too many cars, not enough seats on the train (well more to the point, too many people on the trains) and too many people walking around not looking where they’re going. But as the traffic builds and the seats vanish, I will reflect, smile and remind myself, there’s only 11 and a bit months to go until a perfect Melbourne returns.

Tags: Melbourne

I generally sleep well, it comes from having a relatively busy life, fairly healthy diet, routine and an appreciation of downtime. But on the odd occasion that I don’t sleep well, I get up. I don’t lie in bed tossing and turning or getting annoyed, I just get up and flick the tv on, kill things on the xbox or browse the internet. 

This morning has been one such occasion. I got up around 3am and tried to find something to watch. I couldn’t find anything so I eventually gave in and flicked over to the news.

Apart from Israel bombing the hell out of Gaza, there was not a huge amount happening. One question I had though, after watching an article on some woman fired from a Catholic institution for not being Catholic (who’d have thought), is, how come people who sue people for pain, suffering and embarrassment are more than happy to appear on news shows? Could it be that they actually didn’t experience any pain, suffering or embarrassment and are just greedy fools?

Cricket is one of my favorite sports. In fact it’s probably my number 1 sport. I enjoyed playing it, love watching it live with mates at the ground and love watching it on the living room couch with a beer in my hand. The best thing with cricket is it’s usually always beer drinking weather. 

So as an Australian, it pains me to say it, but I hold grave concerns for us when we travel to England next year for the Ashes. It could be ugly. I can pretty much handle losing to any other team, but the English, I just hate the thought!

I’ve got lots of English friends and it’s a traumatic experience!

Lets have a quick look at the Boxing day 11.

Hayden : HAS to go. I can’t believe he is holding on. He has a great average, but why does he want to undo his many years of great service? The selectors would be doing him (his average) a favor by giving him the flick. As much as we love ya big boy, it’s time to fall on your sword.

Katich : Looking good, I just hope the selectors give him more of a chance than they have in the past.

Ponting : HAS to step down as captain. He is weak, and when you’ve had Border and Waugh as two of your previous three captains, he is just way too soft. And Tubs wasn’t all that soft either. Ponting seems to be more interested in NOT being the fall guy than winning or at least trying to win a match. His record is great, but the team practically ran itself until the Ashes 05. In fact, excluding the blip on the radar, it ran itself until Langer, Gilchrist McGrath and Warne retired. And lets be honest, if it weren’t for Warnes indiscretions, he’d have been captain!

Hussey : Looks lost at the moment. Hopefully he’ll find his way soon.

Clarke : Plays 10x better when he shaves his head!

Symonds : Geez what do we do with Symonds? The Pubs in England are so much fun, he’ll spend most of it drunk so do you risk taking him?

Haddin : I like him. He’ll be just fine.

Lee : Well he’s just split with his wife so I’m guessing that takes a lot out of you. Hopefully he’ll come good. He was looking great a year ago. 

Johnson : Should do well on the English wickets! Just needs some ore experience.

Hauritz : Well we need a spinner but is he it? We’ll be wanting to decide pretty damn quick. No point playing him on and off. He’s either in or out. Lets give that position as much experience as we can before sending them over.

Siddle : Really don’t know much about him. His 1st over of the Boxing day test was pretty damn brilliant!

So, Symonds or Watson? Hayden or Marsh/Hughes/Other? The thing that annoys me most is we need to nail the selections now so they can get as much experience as possible. Hayden needs to go NOW if he isn’t going to England, ditto for Symonds. The spin position needs to be sorted too. 

We’ve got heaps of great batsman in Shield cricket but they need to sort it out ASAP. 

With our tail making 100+ fairly consistently, imagine if our top order were actually doing something useful. 

We don’t want the Ashes 09 to turn into a bloodbath.

Of course, everything seems easier from the couch! No matter what happens, Aussie Aussie Aussie!

Tags: Cricket

Well Merry Christmas to you all. 

Is there such a thing as a relaxing Christmas? I was supposed to be going out for Christmas lunch, drinking and sitting on my butt for most of the day but as it turned out, the host of that lunch ended up stuck in Newcastle so the responsibility of hosting Christmas fell down to us. 

So after some frantic food shopping on Christmas Eve, and an early Christmas morning cleaning, we ended up pulling it off. I was fast asleep by 9pm though, full of christmas food and beer. No eggnog. That’ll be New Years day when the was-to-be host returns and puts on another Christmas lunch. Mmm more food.

I’d love a relaxing Christmas one year. But I’m not convinced they exist.

Santa was pretty kind this year though, scored Gears of War 2 special edition which I started playing yesterday, but it’s always a hard choice, play games of watch the boxing day test. I juggled and did both. Also got a subscription to DrumScene magazine which is brilliant and Jeremy Clarksons 3rd book. He has such a brilliantly conversational writing technique which is so enjoyable to read. 

But now Christmas and Boxing day are over so it’s back to mowing the lawn and doing uni assignments. Yay.

Christmas seems to be so much foreplay and so little action.

Tags: Christmas

Wow, Wordpress 2.7 has added a kickarse dashboard. Great work guys!
On another note, my damn xmas countdown clock has died for some reason. Oh well, it’s almost there. Incase you were wondering, only two more sleeps to go.

Of course, not all news is bad, sad, or important.

Love it : Protestor pays property tax with coins

Moronic : Aussies to block P2P

Lets not forget : Apollo 8

 

And some photos

NatGeo : Santa in Sydney + Others

NFL in the Snow : Pats v Cards

Tags: News