Daynotes.com
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Next Week
Off to the start of a new week! A week of premonitions, dread, and rush, rush, rush for Mrs. Claus: the kids are out of school starting next week; get it done now or forget it until they go back. Unless, of course, I take another day off, stay home and allow her to flee. (Go ahead, guess that answer!)
...and the first non-conflict of the season occurs this evening: My firm's Christmas party and Daniel's Christmas Pageant. My mentor in this area is one Bob Saget of America's Funniest fame. Nearly unable to speak due to a cold on his show one evening, he said, "Sorry, but you simply cannot tell a two year old that Daddy can't pick you up because you have a cold." I didn't have kids yet (I think Daniel was on the way), but I've tried to always remember the thought behind those words. So, blast off from work to drive directly to the auditorium to save seats for Mrs. Claus, Junior Birdman #2 and one grandmother type. I'd go with the family; but you don't know the meaning of the term "soccer mom" until you arrive in this school district: show up thirty minutes early for anything and stand in the hall; sixty minutes and you can stand in the aisle; ninety minutes and you can get a seat; one hundred-twenty minutes and you are close enough to see your child.
...and no problem with missing the party: no gifts; ergo, no chance of gold lame anything.
The pics I put up on Sunday came from a FujiFilm DX-10 camera. On first blush, it looks as though it will fit my needs (low budget, adequate capability). I'll likely have to hold off on the full report for another two weeks as it is about to be confiscated by Mrs. Claus until the Big Day. I can get by with a quick test, but...
Kid news first (hey, I know what's important to us parent types; my apologies to the others out there): Daniel acquitted himself very well last night; which for an eight-year old means he managed to stay relatively still, not hit his neighbors, and fake the words of the songs. Bonus: since I was there so blasted early, we were easy to spot from the stage and his mom got that big wave and grin that is so important to the maternal types (okay, I waved back when he waved to me).
One more round tonight for the five-year old's grand opening performance in a Christmas chorus and we're done for the year. I hope... Mrs. Claus is a bundle of social energy during any time of the year; throw Christmas into the mix and she's swings into some sort of Holiday Warp Drive (sorry Dave, not O/S 2) and bakes and delivers and invites and just generally drives me batty. I myself am not commonly described as the social type. ...unless we can chat about computers or EMS. ...and that leads to a "sniff" from Mrs. Claus as the former is way too boring for her taste (and, by extension any other right-minded person) and the latter is usually too morbid for "normal" people (well, it's funny to me that he---oops, better not; she reads these pages also). Ah well, there are stories and there are stories and likely best saved for another time.
I found two Y2K issues yesterday in my travels on and off line: 1) Peter Kent of Poor Richard's Web Site News has a piece on expiring certificates in browsers and how this may have some effect on e-commerce customer behavior on January 1, 2000; and 2) I went looking for a replacement date stamp for my assistant and couldn't locate any that had a year past "2001". In fact, most of the date stampers on the store shelves didn't have a year past "1999" on their wheels! I only found one item from one brand that had "2000" and two from another that had "2001" as the max. This from a selection of roughly twenty date stamps and stampers on display. I can't help but wonder who missed what in this arena.
...and the tag line today comes from the Bradley, the five-year old: As I was taking a break from cleaning the other day (stuff scattered everywhere), he offered the opinion that my room sure needed cleaning. I replied that that was not particularly funny to me as I was really trying to accomplish something here; to which he replied,
Bradley did okay last night. It was his first real performance before a crowd and he handled it like a trouper. It was so much fun to watch the expressions on all the kindergartner's faces when the curtain rolled back and they saw their cafeteria filled to past capacity with people. That age group is also fun to watch as they attempt to stay in synch on the difficult songs. Gladly for me, that's it for that venue for another year.
The Daynotes back channel yesterday evolved into a discussion of networks in various environments (then devolved into what constituted a real network)(then further deteriorated into who really invented what component of networking). Putting some of the main thread onto my loom yielded:
Okay, I was going to leave it alone because the two printers I have hanging off the family file server shouldn't count 'cause it's really an NT4ws machine (just serving up Apache and a few other necessities). But then we get to the "Why" of roaming profiles (and why I'll likely have to add a PDC within a year or two): so more than one person can use the flipping network from where ever they happen to be in the house<G>
In my case my wife wants occasional access to the laptop while she's in the living room; I'd prefer her to see the same environment that she sees on her machine (mine is way different). Why is she not on her machine? 'Cause munchkin number two is doing his thing on her machine (and not messing with her settings) while his brother is using the machine in their room for his homework logged in sans game capability (and no, neither can have the laptop!).
I'd have to say that the proliferation of "Home Network" packages showing up in the retail stores may be more than just wishful marketing. The next logical step in the home is the "work from wherever you need to be" concept from the corporate world. While I do not have all of the pieces to my personal puzzle in place quite yet, the basics are there and have told me which direction home networking needs to go for me. I'll cover some of the options later this month.
Something in the response Willem sent to Brian on Wednesday reminded me of a pet peeve: Programmers really need to drop by the end user's stations and just hang out from time to time. Not asking questions; just watching and listening. Jakob Nielson's Alert Box for this week reinforces that for me with: There is only one valid way to gather usability data: observe real users as they use your site to accomplish real tasks. This is actually the simplest of all the methods: just see what happens!
Case in point: my programmer (a true genius in the Delphi environment<G>), who typically works slouched in his chair with his mouse arm hyper-extended and a 24oz. bottle of diet Pepsi in his other hand. Periodically, he'll lean forward to type furiously for a moment or two. Then back to position "A". Those two positions constitute ninety percent of his work day. As such, he is what I call a "Mouser". When he builds a data entry screen, he usually adds a 'keypad' with the numbers 0 through 9 and enough code to allow the user to click on each number to enter data. A true "Mouser"!
Counterpoint: my assistant, the Certified Court Reporter, who as you might guess, has really, really fast fingers. She can type anything you'd like in the time it takes you to articulate the information (very disconcerting, as she is usually looking right at you as she types). She was weaned on DOS programs including our old friend WordPerfect. A true "Typist".
Now, I ask you to imagine my assistant using a program built by our programmer. Watch and listen: What you see is her right hand having to leave the keyboard to "mouse" a command and then return to do more data entry. What you hear is the invective invoked from her perception of a process that is taking more time, even though it is "easier" than "just typing it".
Easy enough to fix: I left a trail of Cheetos from his office to ours and had a ice cold diet Pepsi waiting in a chair I had pulled up for him. In twenty minutes he understood: why we asked that any item highlighted in a table should be able to be called by <Enter> instead of strictly by double-clicking; why the mouse is not necessarily the data clerk's friend; just how fast an accomplished typist can work when her hands can remain on the keyboard; and that there was food involved whenever you deal with purchasing.
The lesson here is that sometimes managers and programmers don't know how the end users can interact with the program; and conversely the end users need to know all the options available to the programmers. As I beta tested and wrote the "Help" file for version 1.0 of the purchasing software, I learned something about "mouseability" properly coded: when I need to browse data, that slouched position is way cool. And Erik learned that data entry can just fly if we can keep our hands on the keyboard. Between the two departments, version 2.0 is working its way to real usability.
A little of this and a pinch of that and today finally marks the end of the week for me. ...and the first "true" weekend since August (not that I teach every weekend, but a "true" weekend for me is followed seven days later by another un-committed Saturday/Sunday combo). I'll actually have tomorrow and Sunday off from paying jobs. Notice the qualifier; Mrs. Claus is in full swing and figures that I must be rested since I have no 'class prep' to do in the evenings. (She has noticed the time spent on Daynotes activities!) So... many, many things to do tomorrow.
...and many, many things to do around the house last night: fix the clogged sink, find the missing bear for the kindergarten teacher, restack the unread newspapers, get some sleep... (not even!)
I think that my immediate boss is buying my version of my Y2K duties. It could be the big boss wants my tail sitting in with him and the director level types that night due to the "non-linear" way my brain works. Piffle! I'd prefer to be home with my family rather than in the downtown core. Seems someone decided that a party would be real nice and invited seventy thousand people. (...downtown gridlocks when the local arena lets out ten thousand after a college basketball game.) So, since I just run purchasing now (no longer non-MIS or the plant), I explained that I just couldn't think of any stores that would be open for me to buy from. Miscellaneous quotes from last week: The local Christian station (rock/alternative; not your mother's Christian music) has a tag line that goes, "The message is in the music." This week they've appended,
For some strange reason, the local judicial system decided my seventy-three year-old mother was a good choice for a civil jury. This in a downtown core where the juror parking is nearly a mile away. So, my sister's husband takes her down in the morning and I handle the afternoon pickup. Quote from Day One: Quote from Day Two:
...and we're off RSN to deliver presents to some Angel Tree families. Angel Tree is a prison ministry that coordinates presents from churches to families with an incarcerated parent. We all wear the Santa hats and the kids enjoy driving around the city playing Santa. Then back to the house for some parental tag; one of us diverts the troops while the other wraps. Then we reverse roles; only this time I'm a little behind where Mrs. Claus is concerned. Good thing I have several days until "Men's Christmas Shopping Night".
Maybe more later today (ala Matt); but my main personal goal today is to blade. I missed a few nights due to the jury thing and that just won't do. Bad enough Jim has to run in the dark (...and rain ...and uphill both ways ...and cold) but this season I can't even complain about the tule fog we usually have. It's darned cold out (by my standards, Tom and Sjon) but the the sky is rather clear for a change. Did anyone's Saturday go as planned? Sheesh! The amount of changed plans and unscheduled events seems rampant, especially in the northern latitudes (defined as anything above central California). I woke up with what appeared to be a cold as a leftover from whatever has been bothering me all week (sinus/allergies). Now, I'm not the perkiest person in the morning anyway, but I'm even worse when I don't feel so well. Made for a long start to the day. When I did get on track, we managed to find all the houses and apartments to deliver the presents for the Angel Tree families. Twenty-some-odd years on the streets left me with a good feel for the local area: Mrs. Claus still gets bothered when she reads me an address and I just drive there (no maps needed; and she knows better as she was partnered with me for some of that time).
When we got back I went blading anyway, cold and all. I just bundled up to stay plenty warm and took off; those endorphins were getting real thin and that helped the attitude a little.
Then off to do some shopping for Mrs. Claus. I know: I still have the better part of a week; but I heard a rumor that something she wanted was in short supply. The rumor mill was correct and I got the last one. Whew! No problem though, holding off for Men's Shopping Day, I still have plenty to buy on Friday.
Then I managed some free time...
...and we have one shot of the keyboard area:
That's Athena on top and Wolf on the bottom.
Wolf's namesake hangs on the wall above the right hand desk area:
...and then we have the workbench:
Plenty to be done there before I can move anything (Linux box; docking station) from the area under the bench to the top. And the kitchen table is just so off limits during the holiday season:
That is a present from the CEO of my firm; Mrs. Claus was very happy with it.
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