Category: development

So, if I get some

So, if I get some time in the next week or so (that’s as long as I give myself to start a new project – no sense fooling myself), I’m going to work on an AOLserver/Tcl implementation of the Blogger API. I’ve never worked with XML-RPC, but it looks like it’s just POSTing XML to an url, and ta-da, you’ve got a cool buzzword to add to your resume. AOLserver makes this terribly easily by allowing you to construct responses and requests and has a very nice Tcl socket API. And just when I was getting bored…

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Interesting Google tip: If you

Interesting Google tip: If you type in link:http://www.somesite.com, it will find pages that link to the url you enter. How cool is that? I remember AltaVista being able to do it too, but I can’t remember how. I wish we did that… Oh well, here’s how cool my sister is. She has 5 pages of sites that link to her, and I have 4 sites total, two of which are comments I’ve posted to other sites, one is a site I’m a member of, and one is real. She’s won awards, you know.

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Cuz I Wanna

So, everything’s in disarray. Yup, you said it. I have no idea who I’m working with anymore outside of my own group. So, until that’s all settled you’ll be hearing a lot more from me. I plan on doing some playing, some upgrading, some code-writing on pet projects and taking it easy until everyone gets their collective act together.

You know, I wish I lived in an open source world where I could show you all the cool stuff I’m doing. But, alas, I can’t. Just imagine the application you’ve always wanted on the web… that’s how cool what I’m doing is. Yep, I’m a genius. No, really. You don’t believe me?

I think I’ll start an open-source project. I’ll call it Gnutz. No idea what it will do, but hey, it’s got a cool name, and that’s all that matters. Ok, I’ve been procrastinating long enough. Time to install PostgreSQL 7.1.3 on the intranet and see what I break.

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I have power

I had no idea I had any influence over people. None at all. I was wrong! Isn’t that scary? Because we’ve been hanging around for three weeks with rumors of layoffs, and no word from management, I figured it was time for some civil disobedience. Nothing major like a “naked @ work day” or anything, just something small to show our chagrin. I decided to stop shaving. It lasted for about 10 days. On day six or seven, someone commented on my shaggy appearance, so I let them in on my idea. They apparently told some other people, and by the time the layoffs actually happened, there were six or seven of my fellow employees following in my footsteps. How freaky is that?

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I’m an active blogger today…

I’m an active blogger today… but we’re all waiting around for the ax to fall, and who wants to work on something when you could get escorted out of the building at any minute? Here’s random thought of the day #3:

My wife is a college graduate with a degree in political science. This means she gives bad news very well. She can also get me to agree with her on just about anything. Recently, she let me in on a little secret that she probably shouldn’t have told me. If she doesn’t agree with something I say, she’ll say, “I don’t know what I think about that…”. The ellipses is intentional because she trails off at the end and waits for me to change my mind, which, because I’m a man and not a political scientist, I usually do. The funniest part is, now that I know about the trick, you’d think that I’d see it coming. Nope! She pulls it on me all the time and I still fall for it… what does that say about me?

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It’s official. It’s not 500

It’s official. It’s not 500 or even 1000, it’s really 1700. That’s 1200 from right here in lovely northern VA, and 500 from the west coast from iPlanet. I don’t really know what to say. I’ve done this three times before, all at AOL, and well, it sucks. I think it sucks worse this time because of the overwhelming number of my friends who are sure they’re going to get the boot. That, and the fact that these rumors have been swirling for the better part of three weeks with no official response. Yes, we live in interesting times, my people…

I was here at 7:45, a full hour before my normal start time because I got all of three hours of sleep last night. You know, every time I think I’ve become this Clint Eastwood hardass meanie, something like this happens. I’m one sensitive quivering bowl of jell-o who doesn’t handle this kind of stress very well. No matter how much I put up this front as the-guy-who-acts-like-clint, I think everyone knows. I’m not really fooling anyone. I’m Stuart frickin’ Smiley – and dammit, I’m good enough, lucky enough and stupid enough to admit it.

Let’s see if this works

I’m using Mozilla to write this post. We’ll see how this goes.\
I love other peoples’ photos. Why? I’m not really sure. I like seeing what matters to people I don’t really know. It takes some effort (a lot less than it used to) to post photos. You have to either suck them off your digital camera or worse yet, scan them, create the pages for the photos and then upload the whole mess. Yup, that’s effort. So, what makes people do this? Other than people who post just for family members, which makes perfect sense, why would people post their vacation photos from their trip to Boston or who knows where and then tell everyone where they are? It’s fascinating to me. I love looking at this window of a moment in someone else’s life and seeing what I can learn from them. Usually, not much. But, sometimes, there’s that perfect image of a party with smiling faces, arms around shoulders, drinks in hand. A picture of a family, doing normal family stuff in the backyard. Kids smiling. Parents smiling. It’s just great.

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