Back in London

The advantage of leaving early for a short flight is that you get to spend almost the whole day at the destination. The disadvantage, of course is that not only do you have to actually fly (which messes me up no end and I hate it) but you compound it with having to wake up at an ungodly hour (which in my case messes me up even more if it is at all possible). All of this gives me really mixed feelings about it because while it does gain me one day to tour around it also makes it a less than stelar day so… I don’t know, the jury is still out on this one.

So even though the weather was far better than I could have hopped for for this time of the year, today was a day of headaches and shivers which made me think my body was actively trying to not let me fall sick just yet. But then I may just be the flying and the waking up ridiculously early. I can only hope so, otherwise the rest of the stay will be a lot less enjoyable.

Tuxa on the other hand is definitely getting worse. After spending the last two days at home trying to beat the flu she looked like she was really going to do it but I guess the day took it’s toll on her and when the sun went down (at an whooping 16h30) her throat just gave up on her and now, not only is it hurting a lot, but it also decided to deprive her of her voice. And the cold itself also decided to charge in so there will be no partying and watching the fireworks at the Eye at midnight. Oh well, I’m not a party animal at all anyway, I just hope she gets better so she doesn’t end up spending her London days sick and in bed…

Anyway we did make the most of the day and since every store will probably be closed this weekend we decided to leave the parks and so on for the weekend and just tour the city streets today.

And so it was that we finally found where Whitard is (we lost track of it since last time we where in London and we couldn’t find it in Covent Garden and assumed it had moved out from there. I could have sworn it was not there the last time…) and we got to buy lots and lots of teas and even some related utensils. So that was really cool.

Another great thing we got to do today was to visit the Apple store. Great store, very much like the one in the New York Soho (and almost all the others I guess), very big, very clean, very white, very trendy and filled with great (and great-looking) technology.
I finally got to handle a Photo iPod and it just proved me right in my opinion of it: anyone considering using it view their photos or to show them to their friends on that screen is just crazy. So it’s only real use (for the photo part only, of course) is as an extremely portable slide-show machine with an easy interface to your TV. That way people can carry their thousands of photos over to their friends’ and bore them to death with pictures of their vacation or their children, on their own TV, that much more easily. But it is just so horribly overpriced for that!

Hopefully tomorrow Tuxa will be in better shape so that we can go watch the new year’s parade and hang around the gardens and so on. Then on sunday we are going to try and visit Oxford. I’ve never been there and would really like to get to know it.

Pub food is still great, Guiness is still the only beer I can ever enjoy, Starbucks has definitely got something to do with mushrooms since it continues to crop up just about everywhere and even though there are Internet cafés or bars with Internet access in virtually every corner of (this part of the) city I don’t have any wireless hotspots accessible from my hotel room (at all, open or closed). I do have “high speed Internet access” in my room but at the rates they charge… I don’t think so, I’m not that crazy! So this post will be made available at a later time.

Return of the Post-It

Literally, the square, yellow kind.

Since maybe last weekend I have noticed that I don’t have my Palm with me everyday when I get to work but I haven’t remembered to look for it at home so while I have misplaced it I have been making do with the other tools I have on my Mac.

The problem arises when I have absolutely nothing prepared for the trip tomorrow and I have a ton of stuff to do today before getting home and then some.

So what can I rely on to remember everything I have to do? You got it: the good old Post-Its stuck on the wallet and on the car dashboard.

I am indeed my father’s child, that I am!

PS: Using my memory is not an option as a 60% rate of failure is totally not acceptable in this case! ;-)

Bits and Pieces

The last days have been kind of hectic.
On one side things at work have been really agitated, on the other people in my family are getting sick all around and I end up having to lend a few hands here and there on the spare time (which is quite dilapidated to begin with).

Still, tomorrow I fly to dear old London for a few days so things can only get better. Unless I fall sick during that time. Which is quite possible. But let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. Or lay on that sick-bed. Or whatever.

The Elric Saga is quite interesting, although it does show some signs of age. It surely doesn’t pack quite a punch nowadays —with all that’s been written in the mean time— as it must have when it was written, but I can see why people consider it “essential reading” and I tend to agree. Just make sure you read it early in your fantasy fiction forays or it will loose some of it’s sparkle.

Never assume the code works 100% of the time. When in doubt double check and above all look at the source. It is quite possible the thing you are trying to implement is already there, only hidden behind some undocumented option which is not mentioned anywhere. At all. Except in the code! Private joke, some people will get this, the others may safely ignore it.

Still haven’t had the time to deal with the x-mas pictures, neither this year’s nor past editions.

Still, the turtle moves.

Christmas wrap-up

In english because I feel like it, no other particular reason at all… It should be in portuguese but there you have it.

So anyway, christmas has come and gone. The old book queue is considerable fatter, I’m finally going to have the pleasure of reading Michael Moorcock —more specifically, the Elric saga (a terrible flaw in my book culture, I know, I’m working on it).

Not many photos, I was too lazy for it and anyway I’m really not into the indoor-events-type of photography (nor do I have the right equipment) and Vasco and Tuxa did all the honors on that department so I was off the hook. I did, however, do a collection of photos of all the present wrappings we did since 1998 and I will put it up in a few days (after new-year’s) so that should be nice. This is relevant because we always wrap all of our presents ourselves and we always come up with something special every year so it has become a tradition waiting to see what we did with the presents every christmas.

And speaking of presents, this was a very unusual year in one respect: we did actually finish up with the shopping and wrapping well in advance of the 24th, which led us to a really stress-free christmas. The first one in many, many years. I still can’t believe it myself, how good that felt! :-)

Appart from that, it was nice to see all the families together (as usual), there where far too many presents being exchanged, there was far, far too much food being wolfed down and things went generally very well.

Now on to the next event —new year’s— which will be especially pleasant for me and Tuxa this year since we are going to spend it in London. Yay! If only for a few short days. Hiss!

O Yin e o Yang

O bom

O bom é que ontem acabámos finalmente de fazer os embrulhos para os presentes de Natal deste ano.

Os presentes de Natal são uma tradição familiar que eu “herdei” da Tuxa. Todos os anos os presentes são embrulhados de uma forma totalmente original e personalizada. O problema é que o excesso de criatividade costuma gerar uma quantidade de trabalho absurda com isto, mas é encarado como diversão… :-)

Este ano até nem foi dos piores em termos de dificuldade e de trabalho necessário, até porque temos menos presentes para embrulhar (história comprida, em que não vou entrar agora) e como começámos muito mais cedo do que o habitual conseguimos evitar a maratona do dia 24 de Dezembro.

Claro que ainda não posso disponibilizar fotos porque os embrulhos são surpresa para quem os recebe (e eu tenho a veleidade de acreditar que alguma dessas pessoas pode ler isto…), mas vou colocar isso no álbum depois do Natal. Aliás, vou até fazer uma coisa que já pensei várias vezes e nunca cheguei a fazer, que é disponibilizar um registo fotográfico dos embrulhos ao longo dos anos. Há coisas verdadeiramente elaboradas. E giras!

O mau

O mau foi ter feito o exame médico de rotina no emprego e ter recebido um relatório oftalmológico que diz que perdi acuidade visual ao perto de forma significativa.

Não é que seja surpresa, dificilmente poderia ter deixado de me aperceber disto, claro, mas ouvir isto de um médico e ler no relatório torna a coisa mais “oficial” e, logo, mais real.

Apesar de já usar óculos há muito tempo sempre vi bem (outra história complicada, não tenho nada do que é habitual e sempre tive visão excelente ao perto e apenas meia dioptria ao longe num olho) e o facto de as horas brutais de computador estarem finalmente a apanhar-me na curva deixa-me um bocado triste.

A pdi é tramada.

E agora toca a sair mais cedo para ir a uma consulta médica. Estava a falar mesmo de quê? Ah pois, a pdi… Certo…

Sharing media on the Mac

With the new dream machine at home (yes, I know I’m wearing it thin, but we all know this will pass soon as the new iMac now with turbo-overdrive comes along, so I must seize the opportunity while it lasts) ;-) I have finally setup a nice multi-user desktop environment for me and my wife.

And, of course, no such setup would complete without sharing the massive music and pictures collection.

But this poses a bit of a challenge as the default Mac apps (iTunes and iPhoto) don’t do this very well. They both assume that every user has his/her own library and sharing is only done while they are on-line and running the corresponding application.

Dumb!

Well, after doing a bit of research and thinking about it for a bit I decided to take care of it.

The results are OK (while not brilliant) and I decided to do a couple of how-tos on the process.

The how-tos are not terribly original and due credit is given therein.

So now there are yet two more tutorials around on “how to share an iTunes library between users on the same machine” and “how to share an iPhoto library between users on the same machine”. Referenced here for posterity.

Revolution

Applications don’t bounce on the dock anymore, they just launch instantaneously (even Photoshop).

Quicksilver starts in under 2 seconds and when I press the magic-key combo to call upon it, it immediately awaits my command. Oh and it finds and does whatever I want it to do before I have time to blink (i.e. Quicksilver just became useful).

Neverwinter Nights runs beautifully with every graphical bell and whistle turned on and with a pornographically high resolution. It is fast and gorgeous.

Homeworld 2 is just indescribable. Pure beauty.

Yes, the new iMac changed my life. ;-)

It is done!

It was true!

This is what is on the trunk of my car right now:

[Once upon a time there was a nifty picture here of a iMac box. Unfortunately it has gone and joined the celestial bit-choir.]

In case it isn’t clearly visible, :-) inside the box is a brand new iMac G5 20’ beauty.

And it will stay in the box for today as I’m already committed to lots of other stuff for tonight.

Marry Christmas to me, with a little help from my friend Blue! Thanks dude! :-)

The Call…

I’ve just got the call.

If all goes well it will happen today. Actually it is today or back to the waiting list.

All must go well.

Oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please!

Webcomic roll-call

Another de-stresser post.

So last night, while trying to grok Neverwinter connections again (in the slim hope that I will soon have a 20’ iMac and some free time to actually play Neverwinter Nights on-line) I came across a new(-ish) webcomic to add to my daily dose: Dire Destiny - a fantasy webcomic which, so far, is very much going the hack’n’slash way.

So the list of daily webcomics is now as follows:

• Calvin and Hobbes - Reruns, sure, but a classic;
• Dilbert - Sometimes more inspired, sometimes less but still a must;
• Garfield - A good candidate to slide off the list sometime soon;
• Snoopy - Oldies but goodies. Mostly;
• User Friendly - Some plots are good, others are utterly brilliant;
• Megatokyo - I love this stuff, but the lack of pace nearly kills it, which is a damn shame;
• pVp - What can I say? Geek-gamer life as it truly is. You don’t get your gamer friend? Read this, you will!
• Dire Destiny - The newcomer. A trip down memory lane to my role playing days. It shows great promise.

Not much is different from my roll-call, only Down-time was dropped due to it’s sloooooooow pace. Let’s see how the list checks out in the future.

Natal

Todos os (muitos) presentes estão comprados há já algum tempo.

Os embrulhos (especiais e diferentes todos os anos) estão planeados há muito tempo.

Os primeiros embrulhos foram feitos este fim-de-semana e, pela amostra, o resto não deverá demorar mais do que um dia inteiro de fim-de-semana e mais umas 3 ou 4 noites de semana (um record, geralmente metemo-nos a fazer embrulhos tão complicados que passamos dias e dias às voltas para os terminar a todos).

Se tudo continuar assim não vamos ter de fazer absolutamente nada relativamente a presentes no dia 24.

Estou a adorar um Natal sem stress. Quem diria que podia ser tão bom? :-)

The creative process of coding

You have a problem to solve.

You get the problem in your head and mull over it for a while, trying to consider all the angles.

You then consider the alternative ways you have to solve it. Like a good little programmer you think about what every possible alternative has going for and against it.

You start to make some tests and experiment a bit.

You make up your mind. This is “The Way” you say. You know what you are talking about, you’ve considered it, you covered all aspects, you tried it out you are in control, you are “the man”!

So now all you have to do is implement the thing and get on with your life.

And so you do it.

Only it doesn’t quite come together as you expected it.

Still, you know this is “The Way”, so you toil on, on the face of adversity and you make it work.

Well… Almost, it still doesn’t quite work. And what you ended up doing to the poor code? Man, you should be arrested! Beware the style police, you may never be able to show your face again to your fellow coders…

So you pause and think about it. You know you’ve messed up the implementation somehow, but how?

And one day you are hit on the head by a shovel (weeeell… it feels like it anyway) and you realize: “OMG, what was I thinking??” (yes, in your desperation you start talking like a l33t t33n, go figure…). The way to solve the problem, the better way, has just snuck up on you and is there in your brain, staring at you, making fun of you, calling you stupid and other less family-blog friendly names…

So you go back, undo all the code murdering you’ve done and put in the new, oh so elegant solution.

Of course it works first time, it is fast, it is clean, it is extendable and it has the new super-duper GTI engine!

Well, it was obvious, wasn’t it? It was staring you in the face all that time. Still you had to go and spend all that time and do all that dirty work just to get to it.

And now that you’ve been through all that you just can’t help yourself jumping on to the next challenge. Only this time you’re going to get it right, plan better and the good, clean solution is going to be implemented first. Now you know better.

Or do you?

God, I love being a geek!

Spam… Are we getting tired of this yet?

Well… I am, most definitely!

Yesterday evening my server got hit by a big volley of almost 600 comments and this afternoon another one of over 400 comments.

That’s it, I’m really going to have to do something about this.

First of all I’m leaving Movable Type. Not that MT in itself is the cause of all the spam I’m getting, but it does help, and since I am going to shake things up a bit I might as well go full length and move to something that suits my needs a bit more closely. You’ll see how in a while.

Then I’m going to implement two defense mechanisms on my new blogging platform: people who are authenticated may post straight ahead (I plan to support both users of my own site and TypePad-authenticated users), comments from people who are not authenticated will be moderated.

This makes me really sad, but I just can’t keep on spending this kind of time managing the garbage these morons leave on my site and I’m not even taking into account the bandwidth they take up…

Now I just have to find the time to set up the new platform and especially to make the transition as painless as possible. Of particular importance is the fact that permalinks should continue to be so, even though I’m changing platforms. I think I know how to make this work and if I can I will do it. Like I said, it’s all a matter of time.

So really this is a “thank you” post to all the lowly life-forms out there who have increasingly spammed my site for forcing me to overcome my basic laziness and get on with changing things like I’ve been meaning to do for quite some time now.

Oh, but you can still drop dead any time now, that would be just fine by me.