for the longest time i had been struggling with putty telnet/ssh’ing into my DNS-323. every so often i would drop characters and so typing anything in the shell on the NAS was a monumental waste of time. i have finally figured out why this is happening. it turns out that the reason why i’m having problems is because i have putty set to send a keepalive null packet to the NAS. whenever putty does this, it drops whatever characters i’m typing. talk about weird, huh?
i am a stickler for coding conventions. part of making code readable is to adhere to some set of standard coding conventions. i’ve been using the same set of conventions for a long time now, which means that at least when i look at my own code it looks properly formatted. what pisses me off is when i have to deal with code that has tabs all over the place inconsistently. it’s ugly, it’s awful, and it pisses me off.
i’m working with code where the code is a mess. there are no regular conventions used, it almost looks like people used whitespace on a whim. it’s like writing english sentences and using punctuation whenever you feel like it. now, i know that i never capitalize when i write emails or blog entries, and i’m sure that there are those of you out there where it’s a big pet peeve and it grates on you. fine, i get that. sorry. but at least the meaning of the content is clear. at least, you know, in my head it all makes sense. but i just spent 10 minutes looking at a block of code trying to figure out why something isn’t working when it should be and i finally found out why. it’s because the previous programmer decided that the use of braces and whitespace isn’t very important to them.
in some places code looks like:
if ($variable==true) {
// do this
// and do this
} else {
// do that
}
in other places code looks like:
if ($variable==true) // do this
and in other places it looks like:
if ($variable==true) {
// do this
} else // do that
and in other places it looks like:
if ($variable==true) { // do this } else { // do this; //do that; //do this too; }
it kills me. i’m glad that i enforced a coding convention when we had multiple programmers here. all of our new code looks beautiful.
the more experience i have with lowe’s customer support, the more frustrated i become with them. i placed an order on the lowes.com website and they were supposed to deliver the product via UPS. the UPS web site states that the package was delivered and was left on the porch. when i arrived at home later that day, there was no package on the porch. i’ve never had a problem with UPS deliveries left on my porch before.
i called lowe’s customer care to let them know about the problem. i explained to them that i did not receive the package. they told me that UPS tells them that the package was delivered. so then i told them that i know that UPS is telling them that it was delivered and that’s why i checked the porch that day to get the package, but upon arriving at the porch, the package was not there.
they checked the UPS tracking system again and informed me that the person who signed for the package was…PORCH. oh, right, it was left on the porch. so they tell me that they will forward my inquiry to the internet sales division and that the internet division will contact me in two days. the support person got my telephone number AND email and though i did not like the idea of waiting for two days to get a response to my inquiry, i was willing to wait to see what would happen.
two days pass and i haven’t heard word from the internet division of lowe’s. one of the biggest pet peeves i have is when someone tells me that they will do something and they don’t do it. i would have been less irritated if they contacted me and informed me that they are still looking into the order and need more time, but instead nothing. and that kills me.
so i contact support again and tell them about my situation. the support person begins to tell me that she will forward the inquiry to the internet sales division, but i tell her that i’ve already called before and that is the same thing that i was told two days ago. she pauses and i hear some typing and she tells me that indeed it is true that there is a record that i called two days ago and that the inquiry was forwarded to the internet division.
i ask if i can get a phone number to the internet division, but she tells me that she doesn’t have that number. i ask if i can get an email address to the internet division and she directs me to the lowe’s web site’s contact us link. fine. i sent an email via that contact us link, but i’m not really hopeful that there’s going to be much progress there. their web site BARELY works to begin with.
so the resolution is that she will note that i called again to inquire about the missing package and that she will forward my inquiry to the internet division. i should hear word on tuesday. i’m going to see how this plays out and give them the benefit of the doubt and wait until tuesday to see if i do, indeed, hear word.
both CSRs that i talked to were courteous and apologized for the inconvenience that i was experiencing. i’m sure that the apology is part of the script that they are instructed to use, but still, their staff seemed to be polite and courteous…just ineffective.
all of our other deliveries from our registry have been delivered from lowe’s have been delivered without incident, so maybe this is an isolated case, but it annoys me to no end that i was promised that they would contact me and they didn’t.
06.08commitments
when you make a commitment to me, i expect you to follow through and deliver what you had promised me. if, for some reason, you cannot do whatever it is that you promised me that you would do, i would expect you to tell me that you were unable to do it. what i would not expect from you is not hearing anything from you and to be left wondering what the hell happened.
it is probably the biggest professional pet peeve i have when someone fails to get deliverables to me AND doesn’t say anything to me about it. it is not my job to check to see why you couldn’t do something that you promised me you would do!
02.28more work grumblings
yeah, yeah, i know, i just got back from a vacation from hawtlanta and all i’m doing is complaining about work…
i’ve figured out my problem. i will just add another 3GB of swap space. let’s see my code EAT ALL OF THAT RAM. stupid computers.
Mem:   775296k total,  293172k used,  482124k free,   17428k buffers
Swap: 4551544k total,   36360k used, 4515184k free,  209272k cached
02.23near work disaster
on the suggestion of my boss, i decided to repartition my work laptop hard drive. i got this laptop from him and he had a linux partition on the laptop as well as a windows one. the linux partition (which i didn’t have access to) was taking up valuable porn work-related hard drive space and i needed to free up some memory.
the big download that i had been getting basically ate up all the free hard drive space so i needed to find more space. i have never resized a partition before AND kept the data intact, i always just reformatted, but because this was a work laptop, i decided to try to resize it without losing all of the data.
having never done it before, i did a little research and decided to use this linux boot disk and use a program called QtParted which is a free clone of partition magic.
it SEEMED straightforward enough. delete the linux partition, resize the windows partition, and you should be done…or so i thought.
when i rebooted, i was greeted by a “grub>” prompt. uh oh. i didn’t know exactly what that meant, but i knew that we weren’t in kansas anymore, toto.
i tried to set the active partition, i tried to do this and that, and i think it boiled down to the fact that the partition that had the info on how to boot the machine was just removed so the laptop didn’t know what to do.
i then had to sheepishly ask the IT department for a windows CD to try and fix things. the conversation went something like:
me: uhhh, hi, mr. IT guy. can i get a copy of the windows install CD?
IT guy: you need the windows CD?
me: uhhh…yeah.
IT guy: why do you need the windows CD?
me: oh, you know, i’ve always wanted to see what one looked like.
IT guy: well, let me see if i have one around…so i got it and i was trying to fix things when it asked for the Administrator password. uh oh. now i knew i was in trouble. i tried guessing what the password was and tried all these combinations but nothing worked. finally i had to fess up to the IT guy what kind of trouble i had gotten myself into.
1) i, uhhh, resized a partition on my laptop.
2) errr, without backing anything up.
3) and uhhh, i might have broken things, but i don’t think i did.
4) oh yeah, and i didn’t tell anyone what i was doing, but you know, it should be ok, right?so he goes and peers intently at the password prompt, ponders for a moment what it may be, and GET THIS, he hits the enter key.
let’s let that sink in for a second.
HE HIT THE *ENTER* key. no password. NO PASSWORD.
i’m not sure what was worse. me not thinking of that or there being no password for the admin account. either way it hurts my brain.
but everything is fixed and all is well.
yay.
i can work again.
err.. boo.
10.24motorola T721
i hate this device more than you can ever know. i hate it because it is ugly. i hate it because it is old. i hate it because there is just nothing that i can like about it.
it is because of its insanely TINY buffer size for WML content rendering that i spent a good part of the day trying to figure out why my pages won’t render.
grrrrr.
i’ve been playing at city beach in santa clara for a while now. last season the water fountain broke and they have not yet fixed it. it’s been well over two months now. previously, they put out pitchers of tap water for players to drink as a replacement for the broken water fountain. that seemed pretty reasonable and fair.
during playoffs they refuse to give out pitchers of water AND they have not yet repaired the water fountain, in fact, they have completely removed the water fountain from the wall and all that is left there is the piping that the water came from.
i find it outrageous that they have been providing water all season and then suddenly, without explanation, they flatly refuse to give water to the players. that just seems ridiculous.
i’m going to buy a pack of water for the team in case they get thirsty and don’t want to spend the money for some drinking water.
how could this happen to me
–simple plan
I open my eyes
I try to see but I’m blinded by the white light
I can’t remember how
I can’t remember why
I’m lying here tonight
And I can’t stand the pain
And I can’t make it go away
No I can’t stand the pain
Chorus:
How could this happen to me
I’ve made my mistakes
Got nowhere to run
The night goes on
As I’m fading away
I’m sick of this life
I just wanna scream
How could this happen to me
Everybody’s screaming
I try to make a sound but no one hears me
I’m slipping off the edge
I’m hanging by a thread
I wanna start this over again
So I try to hold onto a time when nothing mattered
And I can’t explain what happened
And I can’t erase the things that I’ve done
No I can’t
How could this happen to me
I’ve made my mistakes
Got nowhere to run
The night goes on
As I’m fading away
I’m sick of this life
I just wanna scream
How could this happen to me
I’ve made my mistakes
Got nowhere to run
The night goes on
As I’m fading away
I’m sick of this life
I just wanna scream
How could this happen to me
———————————–
despite our best efforts, one of the most difficult challenges in life are those that we could never anticipate. they are the things that terrorize you under a beautiful summer afternoon when your day seems to be as normal as any other. it is during these trying times that we must gather our strength, our fortitude, and our undying resolve to face the day and its challenges.
it doesn’t hurt to shake your fist at the blue sky and scream:
“HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN TO ME!?”
08.02frustrations
it’s ridiculously early in the morning on sunday. the tournament yeserday went mixed. all of the people i talked to seemed to have a good time, but other people seemed to hear some complaints. i’m not really sure how the tournament was really going anymore. i will choose to believe that it went fine.
after the first day of play, the committee went around and seeded the pools of teams for the second day of play. my involvement in this, i thought, was supposed to be pretty large, but what ended up happening was a few people seemed to take over and completely change what i had envisioned what the tournament would look like. in fact, i think that there are more people who would be unhappy at the way the tournament ended up today than what i had planned.
i was pretty unhappy with how today has turned out roster-wise. i didn’t appreciate at all the attitudes that some people were giving me, particularly because i feel that they had been given ample opportunity to provide feedback to me, but never did. i don’t think it is fair to complain about how things were run if you weren’t going to be proactive enough to help.
i made a particular effort yesterday to go around to captains and talk to them about their team placements to see if they liked where they were at, particularly the teams that i felt were borderline teams and may need to be bumped up or down. i wanted to make sure that they players had a good time, and unfortunately, i feel like all of my efforts have gone wasted because things didn’t end up the way that i wanted to.
i’ve decided that running this tournament has really soured my experience and i don’t plan to run another tournament. it’s just too frustrating.
this tournament hasn’t been run for a few years now because they couldn’t get people to run it. i guess part of the reason why that’s the case could be because no one would want to. =P
but it’s all over and i guess i’m thankful that it went without too many problems.