Geeky: March 2006 Archives

Some people have been waiting for this for some time - and it's been a long time coming. The original South Florida Dubs site design was really intended as a stop-gap measure, something to put up while I finished the actual look of the site. After all these months, that design is finally complete.

I went through several false starts in the process of coming up with this design, and tried a couple of different styles. Finally, I'd been saving a specific design for one of my personal websites, but decided that it would work for this particular site. All said and done, the goal was sleek and elegant, which I think was achieved.

A sneak peek will be available soon, although the new design should be live soon enough. I'll update with a link either way.

So the Powerbook has been acting up lately. It's normally such a well-behaved young lady that I rarely have anything to say about it except "I love my Mac." However, time is starting to take a toll on the old girl. How do I know this? Well, just a few days ago, the Airport card crapped out.

Now normally this isn't a big deal. Airport Extreme cards are what, $60USD? Most 802.11G wireless cards are about that price, or cheaper. One might imagine that an old Apple 802.11B card would be *super* cheap. Yeah, not so much. This would be the first time I've ever seen hardware *increase* in value. $170USD for a replacement card. That's right, almost $200 for an old "B" card. I'm thinking... no.

Sometimes, you just know when it's time. And right now, I think it might just be about that time. It's totally okay, though, there's no enmity or bad blood. In fact, it's been three years of dedicated work, lots of good times and harrowing times, and everything in between. I'm just looking forward to some new experiences, some growth, and (of course), more good times. In the meantime, I do what I do. And that's the joy of it.

Today wasn't terrible, although I definitely feel a bit of the ol' stress. K likes to say the ol' salesman's motto "You're only as good as what you did yesterday, not a month ago, not a year ago." That's great, except in my world, success can be (and usually is) measured in terms of months and years, so it's not as applicable as you'd think. Unfortunately, The Powers are all salesmen. Great, just great. It's amusing, though, how once you've achieved expected goals once, suddenly you're expected to achieve those goals ever faster. I wish it were that formulaic!

Phew! Two missions tonight... one, I must get S some coffee. It's important that she be caffienated properly on work evenings such as this one. Two, I must find Namco Museum for the PS2. S has a great little unit that contains some ancient ROM of the original Pac-Man, which is fine and all, but not when I know full well that there exists in the world a licensed version of the original Namco ROM on a PS2 disc. It contains not only Pac-Man, but Ms Pac-Man... and Galaga! Let the good times begin! I'm excited - even if it is a total throwback. 14 classis 80's games. 20 bucks. That's a buck and a bit per game. I spend well over that every time I go to Boomer's to play any of these (if they happen to have them... we even go on trips down the Turnpike to the Service Plazas just to play Ms Pac-Man).

So, totally worth it. And it'll bring a smile to S's face. Ahhhh yes.

We had *such* a meltdown yesterday, the stuff of nightmares. Okay, it totally wasn't really. An Access database took a shit, and the boss-people looked around, squinted their eyes, brought up fingers of responsibility (and blame)... took careful aim...

And then I wandered by. "Hi" I said, "what's up?"

So they fired. They opened their maws wide, teeth gleaming, fangs dripping blood, and roared "Fix!"

Identifying the issue was a simple matter, the screen screamed its text at me "I hate you! I hate you! I'll swallow your soul!" Luckily I had garlic, a cross, and a wooden stake. I dodge bullets all the way down the hall to the server room, a fortified hole where a geek can control the universe or take a quick nap. The server room also happens to house the server, which has attached to it the Almighty Backup Device.

I recited the incantations, waved my arms around mystically and with purpose, popped some smoke, and restored that which was once lost... oh, relief flooding my body, starting deep in my stomach and spreading out to my fingertips, fingertips tapping the keyboard and mouse to check the restored file and ensure that my evening was indeed over, and prove once again that I am the devilishly charming hero I see in the mirror every morning.

No such luck! The file sizes didn't match! The database wasn't backed up, because it resided on a workstation, and workstations didn't fall under the protective umbrella of our extremely large and impressive backup tapes. Sweat broke out on my brow. I started to run.

But wait, there's totally a good reason for it! And it's related to climbing, so that should be exciting. For *some* people at least...

I'm setting up a sort of 'events calendar'... more like an 'events list' than a calendar. Something about the calendar interface never really struck me as intuitive, so I'm just going to skip it and make it a kind of list of upcoming events. What events, you'll ask? Why, climbing events, of course!

After noting that people are immensely disorganized about going on climbing trips (including me, of course) I decided that the best way to correct this would be to establish some sort of... system, if you will... to organize people despite themselves.

This system won't be open to just anybody (at least not at first.) I mean, anybody will be able to access it and view the trips, but only registered 'members' will be able to post to the events, and only I will be posting up new events. At least at first. I'd like to expand it once it gets rolling, but for now, it's just intended to give me a place to post the trips that *I* plan on going on, and have people sign up if they're down to come with. Later on, it'll be a place anybody can post up a trip/event, relevant details (such as lodging, plane ticket prices, carpooling instructions, etc) and have people sign up for those events too. But like I said, that's down the line.

Right now, I just want to concentrate on making it work. Which, in and of itself, can become complicated.

So, on to the extra-geeky stuff. I'm thinking I might use this opportunity to make this my first Ruby application. Doing it in PHP was my first though (and probably the easiest way to do it) but I've been itching to apply a little practical Ruby to the repertoire, and this seems like a good opportunity. That won't make it as marketable a tool, I suspect, but it's for fun and convenience, not for money, so it's hardly a factor.

More then, as it comes. In the meantime, I've set up a forum (phpBB) to take care of immediate communication issues. It's nothing fancy, but it'll do the job in the meantime.

Phew! My geek gland is throbbing!