$

My brother had to do one of the harder things in life today.

He has to ask his little brother for money. This is the fourth time he hit me up for money this year. Don't get me wrong. I had to ask him for money when I was going to University. But, I've repaid that debt, add about 10-12K on top of all it.

Now I'm trying to be a little bit irresponsible with my money. And I've got to chip up way more on top of it. My brother's in a bind because he has nowhere else to go. He's not done school. He doesn't spend irresponsibly (he's using my old computers for crying out loud).

But there are two mortgages out there right now. All I know is that I'm paying for one of them. I gave more than my fair share. There are three other wage earners in this house. Apparently the three of them can't scrape the rest.

Do I sound insulting? Yes, am I trying to be? Nope. But being blunt can sound that way.

I'm rude when I'm around my parents a lot. Pritesh (who may be one of the only people who reads this blog) wonders why sometimes. It's because of moments like these. It's because my mom's too lazy to work. My dad's spending all his money on chicks. My brother's not out of school yet.

And I'm going out of my fucking mind.

iSuck

I hate Apple.

Apple is fucking worse than Microsoft.

I bought the iPod Touch. I was like this is going to be sweet!

However

• I learnt that iTunes on Windows is fucking brain retarded.
  
• I cannot copy a jpeg onto the touch without syncing a folder
• I CANNOT COPY A JPEG ONTO THE TOUCH WITHOUT SYNCING A FOLDER
• Syncing is retarded (goes for ALL mp3 players). I accidentally wiped out my music collection by syncing it with my work laptop.
• DRM Music. I purchased 3 songs from the iTunes store on my work laptop. Guess what? They're gone forever because I didn't back them up illegally.
• The videos only take Mp4; how fucking long do you think you can get away with this? It doesn't even take it's retarded QT format.
• I can't possibly separate my own mp3 in the podcast section. Only if I use iTunes.
• Playlist management is a fucking joke (aka there IS none (not without iTunes)).
• They tried to force me to pay $10 for a software update since I purchased it before Jan 2008. (fuck you to all who tell me this is justified)
• I turn the Touch and charge it while it's off. It's mean to be on and charged. Great way to kill the battery intentionally (planned obsolecense anyone?)
• How long do you think you can get away with not putting in a radio?
• I felt that they usurped features to not make it compete with the iPhone.

This is probably the last Apple purchase I'm going to make. I was considering a laptop but I think this is the end. I'm either going to get a BlackBerry, HTC Touch Diamond, or N95.

Commenting is important.

/***************************************************************************

* Table Name:

* Purpose: Retrieves 

*

* REVISION HISTORY

* -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* 4 Feb 2008 LA Created

* 20 July 2008 RL Added retrieving the end date and status alongside the rest

* 28 Sept 2008 RL Added retrieving the QAID

*******************************************************************************************/

Bitching

(paraphrase) "Arguing is a good thing. It's bitching that's bad. When an argument is over, the air is cleared. Bitching goes nowhere."

Branching

So I wanted to make my branch.

Can anyone tell me what justifies a good reason to branch?

Because apparently a lot of people are against it. So far the reasons are silly though:

- merging is going to be a nightmare (this one makes no sense)
- you're able to shelve changes (I tried not to scream at the top of my lungs)

I'm torn right now. I don't know whether to just fuck up the trunk and let my team feel the consequences. Or just do it anyways.

...

Okay, forget the 'justifies' a good reason to branch, I Googled it and did some reading. Here's a good resource:

http://www.ericsink.com/scm/scm_branches.html .

This is exactly where I fall under:

Subteam.  Sometimes a subset of your team needs to work on something experimental that will take several weeks.  When they finish, their work will be folded into the main tree, but in the meantime, they need a separate place to work.

I had three people tell me I was wrong at work. Fantastic.

BBQ

We had a party the other day at my company.

I had a guy come up to me and tell me that his team was crazy. They were working on Java with Linux. He said they were even using Cygwin.

Cygwin on Linux? I was confused.

Cygwin, I thought was a way to have emulate the Linux shell on Windows.

I attempted to clarify but I had two people in agreement that I was nuts. Then they said Cygwin is perfectly fine on Linux if you don't mind it running without the IDE. I'm like ... what IDE? Then they said that it's a good handler of source control.

I just went to the cygwin.com site and my initial definition is about right. There IS Cygwin on Red Hat. It's all about porting Linux apps to Windows. Cygwin/X apparently is doing the X Window thing on Windows.


No one would explain it to me though. I figure that at least they must have heard of my version of Cygwin.

Preview

Is it more important to have a developer who understands sales? Or is it more important to have a salesman understand development?

I'm taking a good look at how software consulting works.

The hierarchy of a consulting company (not too much from a regular software company) is:

Sales
(Technical Sales)
Account Manager
Program Manager
(Architect)
Team Lead
Lead Developer
Senior Consultant
Junior Consultant

Sales - does the immediate pitch of the product
Technical Sales - pitches the technical side of the product
Account Manager - performs high level assistance of the service
Program Manager - overlooks the health of the project in relation to deadlines
Architect - overlooks the overall technical architecture of the project
Team Lead - matches the technical implementation to the architecture to the specs
Lead Developer - does the implementation of the architecture
Senior Consultant - developer with imaginary importance
Junior Consultant - developer with no importance

I define these levels because to execute a large-scale successful product requires a good level of management between the two. In certain cases, no management at levels.

What a day

I don't take criticism well. I'll say that up front. However, if I have a heated discussion with someone. For example, Ian Halliday ... at the end of the conversation, after everything has cooled down. If the other person is right ... I'd like to think that I've taken away something from it. Sometimes I've even come back later and thank them for challenging me. It doesn't happen too often but I've done it before.

I admit it's a problem with me. I'd like to think that I'm at least man enough to admit my flaws. I also want people to point them out to me so I can work on them.

I just had a review today. I think it was probably the dumbest review I've ever gotten. They wanted it both ways.

The person giving the review received all his information second-hand. So I have to accept everything he says.

The person said he wanted a discussion. But he rarely let me speak.

The person claimed I missed most of my deadlines but did not produce anything to prove it. (I called bullshit on this.)

The person claimed that I was difficult to work with and missed deadlines but of all the developers ... they wanted to keep *me* on the project.

The person claimed that I was immature but instantiated the lower maturity on all the conversations. (I'll throw you off the roof) (That's what Italian mothers do) (etc etc ...)

The person claims that I should have clean code and yet claims that sometimes you have to do what you have to do. (Good, fast, and cheap ... I'm cheap, choose one of the other two)

Oh yes, they tell me to listen to my lead developer because it's his ass on the line. But, somehow I'm on trial for these problems. YOU CANNOT HAVE IT EVERY WAY.

By the by, no one else gets called out on the deadlines. I did miss deadlines. By about 3 hours ... once. Bad? My teammates missed theirs by days-weeks-months. *I* got called out on mine. I also got threatened by my lead developer. No one else did. No one gets a peep.

He's going to send this information to all the managers.

Reviews are a painful time for anyone/everyone. I take things critically, I'll concede that. I will call bullshit on anyone who says that they don't have similar flaws. You haven't looked at yourself honestly or clearly if you haven't. But, when you're going to go through a list of issues that I have. How can it be constructive criticism or even a discussion if you are not the person I've been dealing with? I can't defend anything. It's all a third source.

What happened was that things got hot. I was working on a volatile piece of code. Every change could break the system. I gave repeated warnings about the data I'm reading, its integrity, and the volatility. Instead my lead developer had amnesia and repeated the same thing over and over. Asking for me to have it all done ... I repeat the risks and tasks ... he says that's okay ... and he come back again asking the same thing. The next time with a threat.

Software

Here's a list of software that I've been using:

Programs
Mozilla Firefox
Paint.NET

Development
- Beyond Compare ($)

Configuration & Utilities
- Input Directory
- UltraMon ($)
- DAEMON Tools
- Launchy
- KeePass Password Safe
- CoreFTP
- WinRAR ($)

Communication
- Skype
- Live Messenger

Media
- FLV Player
- Foobar 2000