Hi,
My eye is better. Thanks for asking.
At work: at work we are still developing SMS. Now the graphic design is being made, along with 3-fold flyers. The funny part was the graphic artist asking us developers "what else" did the application do besides sending SMS. We looked at each other and said... "nothing"!
My project: First alpha build being put online in a test domain.
Last night already made great advances in the content controls. Already have controls for login, logout, login info ("welcome back, John Doe"), recover password (already sends emails), up to 10-level permission levels, simple search, search results responding to simple search, and paging. Not bad.
I've been active too in marketing tests, and it's been going pretty well (or you wouldn't be seeing this blog right now).
Other news: Not much to tell. Preparing for an evening out in Valentines Day, getting to wear engagement ring with my girlfriend. Nothing much.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
Another day
Hello
I am at home today, because I have an eye infection and look like a monster. Or at least, that I was punched in the eye. The area below the eye is inflamed and a dark pinkish colour.
Yes I've gone to the doctor, and I'm being medicated.
My project is now entering the phase of designing parts or controls for it. Each part will be placeable anywhere on the site and its unique identifier means each page can contain dozens of the same parts and all have their own characteristics. Nice.
At work we keep designing the dreaded SMS message service. Now we have decided to include a basic and a premium service, to circumvent the fact that the premium is too expensive and that the basic doesn't do a very nice job sending messages. Sometimes they arrive, sometimes don't - and always report error, even when delivered. Go figure.
To me, this is bad project design.
I mean my boss cames in Monday and says "We'll do it to immediate send SMS" and we start coding. By Wednesday when he leaves the project has to "Send scheduled SMS and have clients and agents who have clients associated" and we start reformulating all of it. Friday, yes Friday he comes and says "Ok, so we need two pricing schemes, and accept online payments on the double" and we stare at each others in silence.
This. Is. Bad. Project. Design.
I know I shouldn't bash my day job, it's what keeps my food and clothes, but - sincerely! We are a software firm and we have a software we sold once. ONCE!
Another software is sold one in every three months. Other we are happy to sell it once a month. And our flagship, being the flagship, sells once a month too. The flagship is expensive, but the other ones don't! They're in the $100 price-tag.
And we instead of designing new applications, divide the team to develop parallellelly (lol) two softwares, are stuck going round and round with a thing that WILL NOT give much revenue, everybody is doing it, and we're doing it the WRONG WAY.
And then I am sort of joked there because my own software didn't sell much copies too and went bankrupt. That's exactly the point - I got it from experience and would not be happy to see it happen to me again on other place.
And that's the reason to be developing this new software project on my off-hours: to get some more income while I am there employed, and to see if I could lash out some thing to become my next try at independency.
Cheers.
I am at home today, because I have an eye infection and look like a monster. Or at least, that I was punched in the eye. The area below the eye is inflamed and a dark pinkish colour.
Yes I've gone to the doctor, and I'm being medicated.
My project is now entering the phase of designing parts or controls for it. Each part will be placeable anywhere on the site and its unique identifier means each page can contain dozens of the same parts and all have their own characteristics. Nice.
At work we keep designing the dreaded SMS message service. Now we have decided to include a basic and a premium service, to circumvent the fact that the premium is too expensive and that the basic doesn't do a very nice job sending messages. Sometimes they arrive, sometimes don't - and always report error, even when delivered. Go figure.
To me, this is bad project design.
I mean my boss cames in Monday and says "We'll do it to immediate send SMS" and we start coding. By Wednesday when he leaves the project has to "Send scheduled SMS and have clients and agents who have clients associated" and we start reformulating all of it. Friday, yes Friday he comes and says "Ok, so we need two pricing schemes, and accept online payments on the double" and we stare at each others in silence.
This. Is. Bad. Project. Design.
I know I shouldn't bash my day job, it's what keeps my food and clothes, but - sincerely! We are a software firm and we have a software we sold once. ONCE!
Another software is sold one in every three months. Other we are happy to sell it once a month. And our flagship, being the flagship, sells once a month too. The flagship is expensive, but the other ones don't! They're in the $100 price-tag.
And we instead of designing new applications, divide the team to develop parallellelly (lol) two softwares, are stuck going round and round with a thing that WILL NOT give much revenue, everybody is doing it, and we're doing it the WRONG WAY.
And then I am sort of joked there because my own software didn't sell much copies too and went bankrupt. That's exactly the point - I got it from experience and would not be happy to see it happen to me again on other place.
And that's the reason to be developing this new software project on my off-hours: to get some more income while I am there employed, and to see if I could lash out some thing to become my next try at independency.
Cheers.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
4 hours sleep
Hello.
I am with 4 hours of sleep. Damn insomnia.
Tuesday was national holiday and as my girl worked all day long, I rewrote my project from scratch. Now it has triple the flexibility and one-third complexity.
It's quite ingenious actually: just like Visual Studio has primitive controls (labels, textboxes, etc) we can build upon, my project has primitive parts that can be combined to form complex websites.
My friend has already expressed interest in one functionality my project doesn't have, but that will be a matter of two new parts added to the parts collection and all means just a day's work.
Integrating in future projects: seamless as all controls will be versioned and distinct from actual site logic. They have their own code and conditions and can be subclassed, which means I can do some specific stuff for a specific website and won't break the primitive controls.
It's got so flexible, I'm also doing the project's backoffice (composed of it's own controls and parts) inside the project's new engine!
Yesterday I went diner and going out because it was my 2nd anniversary with my girlfriend. We are on route to rent a house and start living the good life away from our daddys and mommys.
Today I also learnt that the vocalist of my preferred band just got out because he felt he could'nt contribute more energy to the band. It's Karkhov from Blasted Mechanism. Here's a video of them acting live:
I am with 4 hours of sleep. Damn insomnia.
Tuesday was national holiday and as my girl worked all day long, I rewrote my project from scratch. Now it has triple the flexibility and one-third complexity.
It's quite ingenious actually: just like Visual Studio has primitive controls (labels, textboxes, etc) we can build upon, my project has primitive parts that can be combined to form complex websites.
My friend has already expressed interest in one functionality my project doesn't have, but that will be a matter of two new parts added to the parts collection and all means just a day's work.
Integrating in future projects: seamless as all controls will be versioned and distinct from actual site logic. They have their own code and conditions and can be subclassed, which means I can do some specific stuff for a specific website and won't break the primitive controls.
It's got so flexible, I'm also doing the project's backoffice (composed of it's own controls and parts) inside the project's new engine!
Yesterday I went diner and going out because it was my 2nd anniversary with my girlfriend. We are on route to rent a house and start living the good life away from our daddys and mommys.
Today I also learnt that the vocalist of my preferred band just got out because he felt he could'nt contribute more energy to the band. It's Karkhov from Blasted Mechanism. Here's a video of them acting live:
Sunday, February 3, 2008
My Birthday
Well, my birthday sucks. My 29th year on planet started with a fight, ended with a fight, my mom and my girl crying, and me wanting to trash the cake. Sad, sad day. Even rained outside.
I spent the day trying to work on my project, I'm considering alternatives like Joomla and .NETNuke, have set up a virtual machine to try both.
The Vista Server 2008 is damn stupid and slow and well, it's Vista. Joomla is like 2mb zip file and it took 20 minutes to unzip the darn thing. XP virtual machine? 1 minute!
My MediaCenter remote control isn't working and i think its dead.
Today I surprised my girl by visiting her in her job when she thought I was somewhere else with my friends, she liked. Many hot girls there shopping on a Sunday too. Even saw a goth one lol.
Today is all, Joomla is finally unzipped so I will play with it a little now. See ya.
I spent the day trying to work on my project, I'm considering alternatives like Joomla and .NETNuke, have set up a virtual machine to try both.
The Vista Server 2008 is damn stupid and slow and well, it's Vista. Joomla is like 2mb zip file and it took 20 minutes to unzip the darn thing. XP virtual machine? 1 minute!
My MediaCenter remote control isn't working and i think its dead.
Today I surprised my girl by visiting her in her job when she thought I was somewhere else with my friends, she liked. Many hot girls there shopping on a Sunday too. Even saw a goth one lol.
Today is all, Joomla is finally unzipped so I will play with it a little now. See ya.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Still alive
Hello.
Tomorrow is my birthday. As my girl works, I will be programming on the pc all day until she arrives. Then we will lie down and see a movie in our MediaCenter.
Not planning much of a celebration, but we'll see.
Bye
Tomorrow is my birthday. As my girl works, I will be programming on the pc all day until she arrives. Then we will lie down and see a movie in our MediaCenter.
Not planning much of a celebration, but we'll see.
Bye
Monday, January 14, 2008
Working
Hello.
Today I am happy because finally, after almost two months of waiting, and a month-long stop at customs, my package finally arrived. What I am talking about? What package? Well a fantasy suit I bought to surprise my girlfriend with it, custom made. Hope she likes Friday.
She just got a job and she deserves some fun ;)
At work we are writing an SMS app that basically is prepared to build nuclear missiles with GPS and flight stabilizers and intelligent ogive heads but... is going to build paperclips. Seriously, it's so ill-conceived! I can't enter in much details but to send SMS on a schedule it will have SQL Server database, a Webservice, a Web app, a Windows tray app (for the scheduling on the server side) and a Windows tray app for the users part of it. Bad bad bad.
And we're going to develop it in a mix of VS2003 and VS2008. Yup!
On my project, I am working now. Going fine fine fine. And fast.
Today I am happy because finally, after almost two months of waiting, and a month-long stop at customs, my package finally arrived. What I am talking about? What package? Well a fantasy suit I bought to surprise my girlfriend with it, custom made. Hope she likes Friday.
She just got a job and she deserves some fun ;)
At work we are writing an SMS app that basically is prepared to build nuclear missiles with GPS and flight stabilizers and intelligent ogive heads but... is going to build paperclips. Seriously, it's so ill-conceived! I can't enter in much details but to send SMS on a schedule it will have SQL Server database, a Webservice, a Web app, a Windows tray app (for the scheduling on the server side) and a Windows tray app for the users part of it. Bad bad bad.
And we're going to develop it in a mix of VS2003 and VS2008. Yup!
On my project, I am working now. Going fine fine fine. And fast.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Hello there.
Today its raining here. Lots of blackouts.
My girlfriend is almost with a new job, so we can get together and rent a house to start living.
Myself my web project is progressing fine, got a new skin and it's integrating wonderfully.
Got a meeting with the November website client so that we correct some minor glitches they've found and that should be done today. Its 23.00 pm heheheh.
I'm still working on my home-made Media Center for our home, it's progressing nicely:
Pentium III at 1 Ghz
320 Mb of RAM
2 IDE Hdd's with 8 Gb each (I know, but it's an amateur thing)
1 DVD drive
1 Soundblaster Live 5.1
1 USB IR receiver + remote controller (bought at cheap chinese store)
At work I sense they are joking me around. Even the youngest one there, there seems my suggestions are always wrong and the way they envision new software is weird: they prefer to work low low tech and do things manually sometimes, yet another they tend to include all tidbits and go for ultra-high-tech. Just doesn't make sense.
And worse, they between the team of five we are, they seem to prefer one another from me, and give me the easiest assignments like manual writing or such. Coding is for the young guy.
Tomorrow we will present an SMS package to develop in the next few weeks, let's see how that goes.
Cya!
Today its raining here. Lots of blackouts.
My girlfriend is almost with a new job, so we can get together and rent a house to start living.
Myself my web project is progressing fine, got a new skin and it's integrating wonderfully.
Got a meeting with the November website client so that we correct some minor glitches they've found and that should be done today. Its 23.00 pm heheheh.
I'm still working on my home-made Media Center for our home, it's progressing nicely:
Pentium III at 1 Ghz
320 Mb of RAM
2 IDE Hdd's with 8 Gb each (I know, but it's an amateur thing)
1 DVD drive
1 Soundblaster Live 5.1
1 USB IR receiver + remote controller (bought at cheap chinese store)
At work I sense they are joking me around. Even the youngest one there, there seems my suggestions are always wrong and the way they envision new software is weird: they prefer to work low low tech and do things manually sometimes, yet another they tend to include all tidbits and go for ultra-high-tech. Just doesn't make sense.
And worse, they between the team of five we are, they seem to prefer one another from me, and give me the easiest assignments like manual writing or such. Coding is for the young guy.
Tomorrow we will present an SMS package to develop in the next few weeks, let's see how that goes.
Cya!
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Day 2, 2008
Hello there.
Today I woke up from a restless night where I ate and ate and saw T.V. and dogs barked and all. I went up fresh to work to do a intensive day of websurfing with my colleague so we could find things to include in the 2008 version of our kindergarten software. The latest version is from 2002, still in VB6. Yuck.
We had lots of laughs for bugs in other softwares, took some ideas forward and are beginning sketching the new application. In VS2008 oh yeah.
I am now reformulating my own project. I will begin by basing it in the latest client website I created in December, and then:
- Rebuild the database from scratch, for multilingual purposes
- Move all existing code from .aspx back to classes structures
- Create visual parts that call the class structures, so I can better place them on page
- Integrate those database-driven visual elements in a css/html template I already got
- Rebuild the backoffice part to get in sync with the new stuff
And from then on:
- Make the code-behind migrate to webservices, to be available to many sites at once
- Etc.
Tonight I can't code because I'm going out with a couple friends, I haven't seen them since last year lol.
Bye!
Today I woke up from a restless night where I ate and ate and saw T.V. and dogs barked and all. I went up fresh to work to do a intensive day of websurfing with my colleague so we could find things to include in the 2008 version of our kindergarten software. The latest version is from 2002, still in VB6. Yuck.
We had lots of laughs for bugs in other softwares, took some ideas forward and are beginning sketching the new application. In VS2008 oh yeah.
I am now reformulating my own project. I will begin by basing it in the latest client website I created in December, and then:
- Rebuild the database from scratch, for multilingual purposes
- Move all existing code from .aspx back to classes structures
- Create visual parts that call the class structures, so I can better place them on page
- Integrate those database-driven visual elements in a css/html template I already got
- Rebuild the backoffice part to get in sync with the new stuff
And from then on:
- Make the code-behind migrate to webservices, to be available to many sites at once
- Etc.
Tonight I can't code because I'm going out with a couple friends, I haven't seen them since last year lol.
Bye!
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
My blog - measurements
Hi
The reason I have a blog is that I wanted some guidance, some buoy to help me sort my life out in a year time frame. That seemed a great idea, because I had a motive, an incentive and a deadline.
I wrote the first entry here on April 25th 2007. I was unemployed, living from my parent's charity and no hope in the future.
Since then, I went back home like a dog with it's tail behind the legs, broken and unemployed, debts accumulating.
Eight months later, my life is getting for the better: I got a steady income, my work contract was recently renewed, my bills and debts are all paid, and actually I'm having some money aside. Ok, so I've been spending of frivolities like a new graphics card for 89€ for myself on christmas or small things I buy from impulse, like a fantasy suit I bought online for performing one of my girlfriend's erotic fantasies (it's one of the "new experiences" part in the blog text). They're part of life, and in fact I'm so close to my money, my girlfriend's sister gave me a piggybank for christmas. I'm more possessive than Mr. Scrooge :)
The reason I am not living in a small apartment with my girl is simply because I just paid my last debts in November, and December is a forgetful month with shopping (although I managed to buy Xmas presents for everyone that matters for less than 90€), and also because my girl hasn't been able to finish her final essay in the university. I promissed her the first month she gets employed we get our own home. Heck, I'm even building our livingroom PC media center and all!
In April 25th 2008 I plan to be living with her, both employed, and with my online home business thriving. It'll be a lot of work, but I think I can manage.
Stay tuned and comment this blog!
The reason I have a blog is that I wanted some guidance, some buoy to help me sort my life out in a year time frame. That seemed a great idea, because I had a motive, an incentive and a deadline.
I wrote the first entry here on April 25th 2007. I was unemployed, living from my parent's charity and no hope in the future.
Since then, I went back home like a dog with it's tail behind the legs, broken and unemployed, debts accumulating.
Eight months later, my life is getting for the better: I got a steady income, my work contract was recently renewed, my bills and debts are all paid, and actually I'm having some money aside. Ok, so I've been spending of frivolities like a new graphics card for 89€ for myself on christmas or small things I buy from impulse, like a fantasy suit I bought online for performing one of my girlfriend's erotic fantasies (it's one of the "new experiences" part in the blog text). They're part of life, and in fact I'm so close to my money, my girlfriend's sister gave me a piggybank for christmas. I'm more possessive than Mr. Scrooge :)
The reason I am not living in a small apartment with my girl is simply because I just paid my last debts in November, and December is a forgetful month with shopping (although I managed to buy Xmas presents for everyone that matters for less than 90€), and also because my girl hasn't been able to finish her final essay in the university. I promissed her the first month she gets employed we get our own home. Heck, I'm even building our livingroom PC media center and all!
In April 25th 2008 I plan to be living with her, both employed, and with my online home business thriving. It'll be a lot of work, but I think I can manage.
Stay tuned and comment this blog!
New Year
Hello and Happy New Year 2008!
That's right - I'm back and ready to make a balance of these few months of blogging.
Seems no one ever visited me, due in part to my prolonged absence between posts, and the fact I'm not advertising this blog at all. Maybe this year it will change...
About my day job: our huge travel agency project just went down the toilet, project which was one of the reasons I was hired. But my job isn't in peril. In fact I got renewed in December.
Why the project went down?
In part, because our client just kept adding more and more requests to the application. In part, because one of our (now fired) programmers just looked at porn and newspapers all day. In part, because the application consisted in a Windows app, two separate web apps (suppliers and agencies), a bunchful of webservices, an SQL database and the plans were to create two or more travel agency websites from there.
Pretty big project, only two programmers. The last three weeks, since my colleague was fired, the project management was my responsability, along with teaching a fellow colleague some real-world programming (he went straight from college). Pretty nightmare.
Besides, many and I mean MANY assumptions during the project two years of life went crashing down on us like a deck of cards. Imagine having to go from the last part of the process almost all the way to the start, realizing it was all wrong.
We needed to filter some hotel rooms based on user preferences, but we couldn't because the underlying filter was flawed. Why? The filter was done on a database table which was flawed. Why? Because the contracting window was flawed. Why? The products page was flawed. Why? Because the product families was flawed. Pretty neat huh?
So in the end the client terminated our contract, we were happy (both as programmers and as company) because the project was long past due and draining precious resources (me ;) and so all ended that way. It's a lesson on how NOT manage a project.
On my personal note, my own project has come with ups and downs through the weeks. I feel a need to gather some extra money online, which until now it's been all spending on the ISP. Sometimes I have grand ideas, sometimes small, and sometimes I feel no will whatsoever to enter Visual Studio and start programming.
I even tried a webservice approach but gave me no flexibility on what I wanted to achieve.
I'm confident that in this new year I will restart full-force and focused and manage to do a pretty darn thing and start earning my well-deserved money.
My girl and I are great, the families joined yesterday for the first time ever to pass a New Year's Eve and all went well. Hope to repeat next year.
My Star Trek amalgama of CDs, DVDs and cross-mixed-series-seasons are now reunited in a 75Gb partition, ready to begin being ordered and labeled correctly and then saved to DVD with nice DVD covers.
Im also trying to work up a bunch of old PC's here and do a Linux Media Center box. Even bought a USB remote controller for it.
About 2008:
I expect 2008 to be a changing year the way the last half of 2006 and all of 2007 were.
2006 for starting with my current girlfriend, 2006 for finally ending my small software firm for not being able to make money out of it, 2006 for getting a job as a door-to-door salesman and succeeding at it, 2006/2007 for living apart from daddys home in a different city for nine months, 2007 for getting a new job on the 2nd January, 2007 for getting my current job at this small software firm and getting with it until now, along many other stuff.
For 2008 my wish list is:
- Get together with my girlfriend in our own home
- Become a better, more responsible and more independent person
- Become better arranjed on my way of dress
- Brush my teeth more often. Maybe twice daily.
- Stop looking at SO MUCH porn online. I guess 20 DVD's are more that enough. ;)
- Make the most out of my daily time to run errands, go shopping, make chores and all
- Get a part time online home business to earn that extra cash I much need
- Make repairs to my car's three bumped doors, clean it often and maintenanted.
- Write in my blog more often
- Pay all my dues, my taxes and my social security
That's it for January 1st, 2008
Cya!
That's right - I'm back and ready to make a balance of these few months of blogging.
Seems no one ever visited me, due in part to my prolonged absence between posts, and the fact I'm not advertising this blog at all. Maybe this year it will change...
About my day job: our huge travel agency project just went down the toilet, project which was one of the reasons I was hired. But my job isn't in peril. In fact I got renewed in December.
Why the project went down?
In part, because our client just kept adding more and more requests to the application. In part, because one of our (now fired) programmers just looked at porn and newspapers all day. In part, because the application consisted in a Windows app, two separate web apps (suppliers and agencies), a bunchful of webservices, an SQL database and the plans were to create two or more travel agency websites from there.
Pretty big project, only two programmers. The last three weeks, since my colleague was fired, the project management was my responsability, along with teaching a fellow colleague some real-world programming (he went straight from college). Pretty nightmare.
Besides, many and I mean MANY assumptions during the project two years of life went crashing down on us like a deck of cards. Imagine having to go from the last part of the process almost all the way to the start, realizing it was all wrong.
We needed to filter some hotel rooms based on user preferences, but we couldn't because the underlying filter was flawed. Why? The filter was done on a database table which was flawed. Why? Because the contracting window was flawed. Why? The products page was flawed. Why? Because the product families was flawed. Pretty neat huh?
So in the end the client terminated our contract, we were happy (both as programmers and as company) because the project was long past due and draining precious resources (me ;) and so all ended that way. It's a lesson on how NOT manage a project.
On my personal note, my own project has come with ups and downs through the weeks. I feel a need to gather some extra money online, which until now it's been all spending on the ISP. Sometimes I have grand ideas, sometimes small, and sometimes I feel no will whatsoever to enter Visual Studio and start programming.
I even tried a webservice approach but gave me no flexibility on what I wanted to achieve.
I'm confident that in this new year I will restart full-force and focused and manage to do a pretty darn thing and start earning my well-deserved money.
My girl and I are great, the families joined yesterday for the first time ever to pass a New Year's Eve and all went well. Hope to repeat next year.
My Star Trek amalgama of CDs, DVDs and cross-mixed-series-seasons are now reunited in a 75Gb partition, ready to begin being ordered and labeled correctly and then saved to DVD with nice DVD covers.
Im also trying to work up a bunch of old PC's here and do a Linux Media Center box. Even bought a USB remote controller for it.
About 2008:
I expect 2008 to be a changing year the way the last half of 2006 and all of 2007 were.
2006 for starting with my current girlfriend, 2006 for finally ending my small software firm for not being able to make money out of it, 2006 for getting a job as a door-to-door salesman and succeeding at it, 2006/2007 for living apart from daddys home in a different city for nine months, 2007 for getting a new job on the 2nd January, 2007 for getting my current job at this small software firm and getting with it until now, along many other stuff.
For 2008 my wish list is:
- Get together with my girlfriend in our own home
- Become a better, more responsible and more independent person
- Become better arranjed on my way of dress
- Brush my teeth more often. Maybe twice daily.
- Stop looking at SO MUCH porn online. I guess 20 DVD's are more that enough. ;)
- Make the most out of my daily time to run errands, go shopping, make chores and all
- Get a part time online home business to earn that extra cash I much need
- Make repairs to my car's three bumped doors, clean it often and maintenanted.
- Write in my blog more often
- Pay all my dues, my taxes and my social security
That's it for January 1st, 2008
Cya!
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