Category Archives: rants

bad, bad server issues

so it turns out that i had some pretty bad server issues over the weekend and the amount of work that is required to get things back up and running is a little overwhelming.

i decided to take the opportunity to upgrade the server and start from scratch. yay…sort of. new version of linux, new database, new web server, new …well, everything. the problem is that i now have waaay too much data to upload if i wanted to upload everything that was on the server. but for now, i’m tarring up my web root to see how bad that’ll be. it’s taking FOREVER.

man…i wish that i had better backups. oh well. some of the auxilary sites are back on the site, but my stuff is just going to take forever. i’ve resigned to that. but i’m going to enforce some clean up for some of the users on my box. i’m not going to upload all this crap back if no one uses it. =P

it’s embarassing, but my old server was an AMD K6-2 333Mhz with 192MB of ram. i had forgotten how old that server was, but it was running my stuff just fine. the new server isn’t anything to write home about, but it’s a little bit faster.

i’ve also decided to switch to wordpress. the new version looks promising, and i was getting sick of pMachine, anyhow. the big question now is whether or not i write some kind of database import util to import the old blog entries into this one…decisions, decisions.

oh yeah, and this is the default theme for wordpress. not shabby, i guess…but i really need to design something new. looks like the next few weeks are going to be pretty busy…

oh yeah..and my email doesn’t work yet. dammit.

desperate times

it’s true. desperate times call for desperate measures. because my laptop power brick is dead, i decided to try and revive my old toshiba laptop. i’ve hated this laptop ever since i first got it. why? because it was the line of laptops that eventually became the subject of [url=http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,103700,00.asp]a class action suit[/url] where i got a nifty check at the end of the day. still, the laptop is terribly slow and it’s painful to do anything of it. that, plus the fact that there’s only 384MB of ram makes for a very painful experience.

i’m trying really hard to install windowsXP on it, but i’m thinking that maybe XP isn’t the right operating system for this machine. oh yeah, so it turns out that there is a design flaw for this laptop and it suffers from overheating and randomly shutting itself off. lovely. so toshiba has issued a fix for it, which basically makes the machine run SLOWER so that it doesn’t heat up as much.

NIIIIICE!

i would try running linux off this machine, but…i don’t know, can i really run on a linux laptop? can i?

what my life looks like

total number of bugs reported in project (so far): 73
total number of bugs assigned to me: 60
total number of bugs i’ve fixed: 25
total number of outstanding bugs assigned to me: 35

you know, life as a programmer is not at all what it’s cracked up to be. not at all. i’ve spent more time fixing bugs for this project that i’ve been working on than i care to really admit. now, mind you, some could say that a good programmer would write code that isn’t so buggy. while others of you, the ones you code for a living, realize that bugs are just a fact of life, just like high blood pressure and taxes.

the sad thing is that QA isn’t done bug testing yet, so there are going to be a flood of new bugs coming in when they start working again tomorrow.

at least i gave them something to do.

yeah.

that’s consolation.

really.

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courage

i’m going to step up on my soapbox for a little bit and start a little lecture to the world…hopefully, i won’t end up ranting, but we’ll see.

the world is a big, scary place. it’s true. we can all live in our little comfort zones if we wanted, but that just makes your own world very small. that’s ok, if you want things to be like that and it is completely your right to do just that.

however, i know of several, several people right now who are lamenting about current love life situation. be it that they are in an unhappy relationship or that they are pining over someone, but don’t know what to do.

it’s hard, i know, but inaction is not the course to take. the world is not going to magically work out in your favor and the sooner you realize that and start to create situations for yourself the sooner you will stop lamenting about nothing happening. now…granted, you could be lamenting about rejection, but i don’t really understand why people are so afraid of rejection. i mean, really. what’s the worst thing that can happen?

let me tell you.

some people like the thrill of just being into someone. and if all you want is that thrill, then that’s cool. i get that. i’ve been there, and i know what it’s like. but if you want more than the thrill, then you’ve got to do something about it. you can’t just hope that someone will take notice of you and actively pursue you. trust me…i’ve tried to will other people into pursuing me with NO LUCK WHATSOEVER.

be bold. be courageous. be like the blind man who says, “i see! it’s all coming back to me now,” as he pees into the wind. just go out, put yourself out there and see what happens. what is the worst that can happen? well, rejection seems to be the thing that everyone is afraid of. and yes, rejection sucks, but what’s worse: rejection or never having a chance?

firefox annoyances

i’ve made the switch to firefox a while ago and for the most part i’ve been pretty happy with it. tabbed browsing, nice extensions, and probably the coolest thing about it is the nice cookie management…but there are some things that annoy me about it.

windows media doesn’t always work well when it is embedded in web pages.

flash objects tend to stomp over other HTML from time to time.

sometimes, i accidentally close all of my tabs by closing a window….i know, i know user error, but still…

parts of wells fargo’s website only accepts netscape and IE, so i have to fool it into thinking firefox is either one of these browsers.

and lastly, [url=http://www.daydreamy.com]gg’s site[/url] renders funny in firefox.

stupid firefox, why be standards compliant? =P i still think that IE is a better browser for the average person. it’s just nicer.

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false advertising

i went to the store today to do some research on a project that i’m going to be working on. when i got there, i saw this pack of dede instant boba milk tea on the shelves. i decided to give it a whirl and see how it was, but i was fully expecting there to be pearls in the mix. when i opened up the mix finally, i saw that there was no pearls in it at all. in fact, the only thing that was there was this powder! i was wondering what the preparation instructions were going to be like to make the pearls and i was getting all excited about having this instant pearl tea mix. perhaps it was too much for me to assume that instant boba milk tea would actually have boba in it. is it then too much for me to assume that instant boba milk tea would have milk or tea in it too? and perhaps it is too presumptous of me to assume that it would be instant.

sheesh.

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the most unlikely of places…

i got into work really late today. this was not by choice, but instead by the designs of a cruel, cruel world that sought fit to hide my keys from me for an annoyingly large portion of the morning.

i was all set to leave for work today and i was leaving the apartment i did the usual check of pockets for items.

cell phone? check.

house keys? check.

laptop? check.

car keys?

car keys?

“hey. where are my car keys?” i asked myself. and so began this morning’s fit of unhappiness…

there are a few places that i ordinarily leave my car keys. why my car keys are not attached to my house keys is a whole other issue that i don’t even want to get into right now, but let’s just posit for a moment that this makes sense and move on, shall we?

so yes…where was i? oh yeah, there are a few places that i leave my car keys. on top of the replay in the living room? nope. on top of the replay in my room? nope. on my dresser? no. on my desk? no. under my monitor on my desk? no. on the kitchen table? on the futon? tucked in the futon cover? on my bed? under my bed? inbetween the crevice between the wall and my bed? no, no, no, no, no, and no.

i started to then look at the stupid places where i’ve been known to put my keys, but really shouldn’t. in the pile of magazines on my floor? in my gym bag? in my laptop bag? on the floor next to the xbox? inbetween the loveseat cushions? under the futon? in the bookshelf? on the kitchen counter? in the fridge (don’t ask, it’s painful just thinking about it again…)? and still no.

then i started to get desperate. so i started to throw away things that were not my keys in an effort to reduce the clutter in my room that may be hiding my keys. and then i went through my checklist of places again. my place is only SO big.

about an hour and a half into the process, i started to give up. i did what any normal person would do at this point: i called mommy.

mommy however was not home and so she could not see if i had left my spare keys at my parent’s house or if i had lost those somewhere in my apartment as well. great. so i left a message on my mom’s answering machine and continued the search.

then she called me back a little frantic and i was explaining the situation to her. as i was explaining the situation, i decided to take a break from the search and instead rest and have a piece of chocolate.

the bag of hershey kisses was on my desk and as i reached into the bag, i got a kiss out and felt something abnormally large in the bag. as i looked into the bag i saw what it was…my car key.

now, you want to talk about highly improbable circumstances? apparently, last night when i threw my keys onto my desk, it slid on my desk and INTO the bag of kisses. as i searched and searched my place i looked everywhere except inside the bag of kisses, because, come on now, who puts keys in a bag of candy?

*sigh*

xbm?

who uses the XBM image format anymore?

i’ve been playing with this counter for a web page and all of a sudden none of the images that the counter makes works anymore. very strange. after a little digging, it appears that in windows xp service pack 2, microsoft has mysteriously removed support for the image format.

why?

know whos? but today i get to make images on the fly! wheee.

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an interesting article

i usually don’t link to articles just for the sake of getting people to read them, but i found this article to be particularly interesting…

[url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/09/24/39FErrdevdynamic_1.html]the process is the problem[/url]

though the article is tech-focused, it can be of interest to anyone really.

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