Talkin' 'bout My Generation

Wow, I had no idea I was part of a generation who's parents have blogs. I just found out this afternoon that my mom has a blog under the name of her business, Bits 'N Pieces. Crazy.

I like the randomness of her first post. She's using it as a companion to her online stores, which she seems to have a lot more of now than I remember her having...

There's knitted and crocheted stuff at her Bits 'N Yarns store at Etsy, her awesome quilting stuff at her Bits 'N Threads store (also at Etsy), and then a Bits 'N Pieces store over at iCraft.ca. All this will keeping her corner of Creative Company full for locals and tourists in Merritt, BC.

So you see, there is very little reason why you don't already own something made by her.

Wonder how long before my dad has one...

Edit: Damn, she's even on Twitter.. I'm not even on Twitter!

Job Change

...but not changing company. I'm still at Fortinet.

Now that I've finally figured out how to describe my job to non-technical people, I go and change teams. I'm moving from development (on the main product) to configuration management (covering all products).

Guess I better start working on how to explain that one to people. CM is such a niche, most IT people don't even seem to understand it. Hell, I probably don't even understand it entirely myself! Then there's the dirty looks I get from some developers. The kind I gave to developers moving to QA (yes, such strange people exist). Maybe it's the office, or maybe it's CM in general, but it's not seen as prestigious as being a hard-core C monkey. Maybe it's a mistake, maybe I'll move back to development after a year. Who knows.

Should be some moderately interesting times. Hopefully not in a bad way. With some luck, I'll have more energy for coding at the end of the day though. And that can't be a bad thing.

Breaking things

Found this draft while writing my previous entry.

My style of poetic wit. May it inspire you in stressful times.

When you find yourself juggling too many things,
take the easy way out...

Drop a few on the ground and laugh at them
after all, laughing is good for the soul..
..but be careful, broken glass is bad for the sole

To avoid hurting your feet, maybe you're better off
jumping on your furniture while you laugh at what you've dropped
surely no one will hold you to your commitments then
...and the ones holding you while you're committed won't expect much of you either!

New Habit

It seems I've picked up a new habit thanks to the Notes feature in Google Reader. Instead of taking the time to write a thoughtful response to an article I read, I just add a sentence or two of commentary to the items I share.

In other news.. Google Sites is now open for general use. I've been waiting for this, and it's really exciting for some reason, but for the life of me, I can't remember what the fsck I wanted to do with it! Oh well, at least I won't have to wait when the inspiration comes again.

KDE4 to the Rescue!

I my last rant I complained about stupid right-click behaviour. I updated my KDE4 install to the latest 4.0.2, so it was time to give it a spin for a day again. Well, lo and behold, KDE4 does not have this messed up behaviour.

I've been using KDE4 for a while, on and off. Unlike, apparently, a lot of other people, I've followed KDE4 development since it was first announced. I didn't have the unrealistic expectation of a finished product. Because of this, I've been ecstatic with it, and 4.0.2 is a good example of progress. I can't wait until 4.1.0 comes out, when KDE-PIM will join the team. I recently upgraded my 3.5.x install to 3.5.8, which includes a branch merge of some really nice "enterprise" features and polish. Very nice, I can't wait.

Why? II

This one has been a major source of irritation lately, as I keep accidentally closing programs because of it...



If I right-click on any of these systray items, a context menu pops up. This is a wonderful feature and I use it extensively. The problem comes in when I release the right mouse button. That's right, unlike any other right-click menu, which persists after letting go of the button, these menus disappear. But wait, it gets worse! When you let go of a button, it activates whatever menu item happens to be selected at the time. You know what menu item seems to be at the bottom most of the time? Exit.

Not only is this inconsistent, the inconsistency isn't even consistent! (say that 5 times fast, I dare you). Of all the apps running in that screenshot, one of them isn't a native KDE app. Guess which one doesn't suffer from this problem? Skype. Skype actually behaves sanely.

Why?

Dear Intarwebs,

Why is the "delete folder" so close to the "empty trash"?



When I right click on the trash folder, 99.99% of the time, it's to empty it. What are all these other options for, and why are they in that order?

TODO: submit feature-request/bug-report and/or a patch...