Back to the Cold
I'm back from Texas, and look what's here to greet me:
And it goes without saying that it's cold :)
Watch and Wait
I'm back in Dallas, and I'm still waiting for network access and the work laptop to arrive. That's the bad news; the good news is, I do have an image with the entire system on it, and I'm having a look at the overrides and extensions (we are currently on VW 7.6), looking for potential issues in an upgrade to VW 7.7.1.
I was a bit worried about the Dataset mods they've made, but having looked at them a bit more, I'm less worried. What I really need to do is get network access so that I can build a 7.7.1 image and start really looking at things with the Comparison tool - but that's on hold. With luck, things will fall into place before the end of the week :)
Getting Started
I'm writing this early on during my first day, but I have no network access - as with most larger companies, there are network security issues, so I can't just toss my Mac on the network - maybe I'll actually look into tethering as I go along :)
Interestingly enough, my start coincided with a new installation of the application I'll be working on, so I'm getting an architectural overview. Pretty useful, all things considered - it's nice to get a broad based idea about a project before you have to dive right into it. Tomorrow I go back in front of the group though - I'm supposed to deliver a Smalltalk overview. They have a pretty agressive schedule for that - I'm expected to get beyond the point I delivered last week over a five day class. I started trying to manage expectations on that yesterday :)
My hotel is ok - free breakfast, decent WiFi (better than what I got at the place I usually stayed when I went to Cincinnati, and I'm paying almost $60 less per night). There's a small exercise room as well, a fridge and microwave. For meals I'm going to have to either eat out downscale or buy microwave stuff - we'll see how that goes.
In the meantime, I'll be away from my usual network haunts during the work day.
Screencast Service Changes
I've just had a look at the Amazon data transfer charges for November, and there's a good news/bad news aspect to it. The good news is that the videos and podcasts seem to be popular. The bad news is that popularity isn't free :)
So, starting tomorrow I'm going to kill the iTunes enabled video feeds for the Smalltalk and Javascript screencasts. The existing content will stay where it is, but I won't be tossing more into those feeds. I'll still be pushing content, but it'll all go to YouTube and Facebook - it'll all be available, and I'll keep updating the index pages, but the iTunes feeds will stop updating.
The bill is small now, but the trendline shows me what will happen if I keep pushing video there :) So thanks for watching, and you can keep watching - just look for it on the blog proper instead in the iTunes feed.
Technorati Tags: smalltalk, javascript, video
Excitement with Microsoft Office
I installed Office for Mac today - my dad bought a family pack and had a spare use license available. So I figured what the heck - I have to deal with Office documents all the time, and while iWork does a decent job with them, it doesn't handle everything I get. This popped up while I was installing, and I have no idea why:
Why does the Office installer care that Chrome is running?
Update - it gets stranger. If I start Chrome after I have one of the Office apps running, it won't load pages. I get the message about a script hanging the page from Chrome, but for any page. If Chrome is running when I start an Office app, this doesn't happen. So... what the heck did Microsoft screw up such that they have a runtime issue with a browser?
Update 2 - Ok, now I can't replicate that behavior, but it did happen more than once. Really, really strange...
Lots of Stuff
I guess I have a fair assortment of computers lying around - I moved the old Mac Mini's LCD screen over to run a test for the VW Intro class I'm teaching next week:
Yeah, that's an old CRT attached to an old PC (ancient, really) running an old rev of Linux. There's even a KVM attached for a slightly less old (but way more noisy) Linux box....
Getting Ready for a Training Class
I have an old Mac Mini (it's got a g4 processor, that's how old) - and it's hooked up to a VGA LCD monitor I bought a few years ago to replace a ginormous CRT it was using. I'm teaching an intro to Smalltalk class via webcast in a couple of weeks, and I figured the monitor would be useful for that - I can keep the slides I'm displaying on the exported view, and a window with the class chat room on the second display. Sounds reasonable, and a quick test (now that I've bought a new mini-display port to VGA adaptor) shows that it works fine.
It should be to teach an intro class again - it's been years since I did that regularly (going all the way back to the ParcPlace days for me). In the interim I've been doing a whole lot of screencast tutorials, so it's not as if I'm out of practice or anything :)
Interested in signing up? Sign up over at Dave Buck's site - while I'll be presenting the course it's material Dave has put together and delivered in person many times.
Pancakes
My daughter turns 17 today - something that seems unreal. On top of a (now pretty old) monitor in my office I have a set of baby photos of her - that just doesn't seem that long ago. Anyway, she's a great kid who does most of the cooking around here. So this morning, she gets pancakes:
Where Does the Space Go?
It's times like this that make me wonder about the data I save. I've been archiving data off a drive that has to go back to my former employer - I had filled a 1 TB drive with stuff. Over the last day (on and off as I was able to muster interest) I copied the stuff that I thought I actually wanted over to a new drive. The results were fascinating.
I started with a drive that had 995 GB on it. I ended up with a new 1 TB drive with only 52 GB taken up. So... what the heck was I doing with the other 940 or so GB? Makes me go Hmmmm...
Technorati Tags: packrat
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