There are a number of things the exist in the software world that I consider to be far more complicated than a person with a level head would ever create. My big 2 are
Fundamentally these two technologies are so basic that a rational person would have no trouble explaining them in a nutshell. Rational people don’t write enough software though, because email and time are two of the most screwed up things to ever be implemented in software.
I’ve kinda been on hiatus in regards to nessquik 2.6 for the last year.
2.5 was released sometime in October of ‘07 I think, and in the meantime I haven’t done much “real” work on 2.6. What I’ve spent my time doing though has had a drastic effect on the quality of the software I write; to it’s benefit.
Over the year I’ve evaluated a number of frameworks, means of logging, javascript libraries, ways of creating APIs, various caching technologies, various ways to store information in databases and on the plain old filesystem.
I’ve created a number of different technologies based off of my findings, and these new technologies have helped me further refine my own definition of well-written software. For example, I’ve created a library for IDMEF generation, this will have a direct impact on the creation of the libraries I use in nessquik to parse and generate XML.
I’ve chosen a standard of coding that suits me. I’ve documented extraordinary amounts of internal code using dokuwiki and will employ this same tactic for nessquik, as I’ve found that it adds greatly to the understanding of my software. I’ve created a unit test framework I’m satisfied with that will also find it’s way into nessquik.
Finally, I’ve discovered a number of deficiencies in nessquik in both features and bugs. All of the features have been documented, and the bugs while not entirely documented, will be fixed in 2.6 due to a dramatic re-structuring of code.
So this last year hasn’t been a wash, it really hasn’t. If I were selling this stuff though, I’d probably be out of business right now; sorry to all those who have sent emails, I haven’t forgotten you.
I have a plan now, and that’s a “Good Thing”. I owe a lot of thanks and respect to the myriad of blogs and news feed sites such as dzone that have provided countless examples of good and bad methods of design. I’ve chosen which ones fit my style and they’ve had time to sit and be used in our organization, so I’m confortable using them with 2.6.
So now that I’ve more-or-less finished battletoads (don’t ask), I’m focusing once again on 2.6. I’m anxious to get it into production on site, and I hope that you’re equally anxious to get it up and running in your organization.
So Christmas is over. It was rather tame this year, but I kinda figured it would be. This week is another one of those screwy weeks because there are sorta two days of vacation in the middle of the week; then you come back on Friday to work for a day. I hate that.
In other news my l33t analytical skills abandoned be temporarily at work today while I debugged a problem only to realize the version of the library I was using was two sizes two small (said old). Way to be on top of the ball on that one Tim.
It’s also amazing how behind-the-times I feel when I’ve been away from my RSS reader for a while.
I read a short book the other day talking about finances and it mentioned that assuming you have children who are college age and destined to attend higher education, or even if you yourself are, that the amount of equity you have in your home has an impact on the amount of student loans or various means of free college tuition that you are eligible to receive. So, if you have your house paid off, you could end up being viewed as someone who apparently has enough money to put themselves or their children through college; whether there’s any truth to that statement or not. So you could find yourself not qualifying for student loans on the basis that you make too much money.
Man, ain’t that a crock.
I’m almost through with reading The Millionaire Next Door which, might I add, has been an excellent book. I’m at a point where the authors are describing the two different types of housewives, and a particular sentence struck a nerve with me. It revolves around parents who leverage their own income and wealth to pressure their adult children into doing something against their child’s will.
My case involves my own dad, the pinnacle of financial knowledge in my family, and how he tried to pull this BS on me some 3 or so years ago. We had gotten into an argument over something trivial after dinner. I think he wanted me to drive my brothers to restaurants instead of have him come and pick us all up; god forbid that he abide by the divorce settlement.
I refused on the grounds that I’m not the one who got divorced, so I owe him no such favor. He countered that he was paying for part of my college tuition out of his owe, apparently kind, heart and that this is the least I could do for him…and if I didn’t, well, no college tuition for you.
This pissed me off, and rightly so. I’ve never been one of those people to just bend to other’s wills though; a trait that has left me out and to my own devices on a number of occasions. I tend to have a “dont care” attitude for a lot of things, because I’m strongly independant and find that relying on others is more of a weakness than a strength. So I told him “fine, don’t pay”. He said “fine”…awkward silence…
In the end, he didn’t reneg on paying, but it was one of those moments that really tested my courage. I was genuinely afraid of not being able to continue school on account of my dad being a jerk.
The book brought that particular memory back. In addition to the numerous stories it tells, it also follows a theme which describes two types of people. PAWs and UAWs; prodiginous and under accumulators of wealth.
For as long as I’ve been interested in finances and talking with my dad, I was always under the impression that he was a PAW (good) as opposed to a UAW (bad). After all, he had a big house and he would buy a new car, tv, computer, and put an addition on his house without batting an eye. He’s a C level exec at a bank, he’s got to make good scratch right? Firmly grounded in financial indepence and whatnot.
Well, not likely.
After reading numerous traits of UAWs, I can say that my dad is one; beyond a shadow of a doubt. Well, I refuse to be one, and I also reject most if not all of the traits of UAWs. I’m not interested in feeding off of the wealth of my parents (what the authors call Economic Outpatient Care). I have no expectation that there will be any inheritence to be had.
I hope that my sisters and brothers wake up to these realities as well as they pursue their way through their lives and careers. Each one of them is on the verge of adopting the UAW lifestyle even though you’d be hard pressed to get them to admit it.
My sister for instance has $3500 to her name. That’s right, her entire net worth. She spends money like a drunken sailor and has needed to be partially bailed out by my father already. Personally, I’d be offended if I found myself in that situation. I refuse to take a dime from them. It’s their money, keep it.
I’ve got a game plan that I’ve put into place to reach that point of financial independence, and come hell or high water, I aim to met the goal.
In other news, Netflix has totally been worth it so far (thanks Joe). I finished The Dark Knight and Hancock; both excellent movies.
Minneapolis is snowy. Today we went to Mall of America since I’ve never been there. It’s big, no doubt, but it’s certainly not all it’s cracked up to be. Well, mark it off the list of places to see. There was a guy at Barnes and Noble there that looked and acted a lot like Johnny Depp.
Natalie and I will be attempting to valiantly venture forth to Minneapolis; trucking through snow and sleet to visit Lindsey on Friday. Here’s to a successful journey.
Well this is going to be a merry merry Christmas now isn’t it.
So my grandma on my dad’s side passed away tonight. Yep, that sucks. So whatcha think xmas is going to be like this year. Pretty big bummer probably. Aaaanyways, going to see my one sister in Minneapolis this weekend with my other sister. Hopefully it will be fun.
Comcast is out. I called today and canceled it. They were actually nice about the whole deal. They did the usual carrot and stick of trying to get me to stay, but didn’t push the issue. I applaud them for their courtesy. Anyways, now we’ll see how Netflix does. I was reading their IR documents today at my dad’s house and found an interesting tidbit. It turns out their CEO is also on the Board of Directors for Microsoft. Gee, that couldn’t possibly be the reason that you can now get Netflix on your 360, or that Netflix uses Silverlight, or that Microsoft and Novell are working together to develop Moonlight; a linux Silverlight Implementation.
Ok, conspiracy theories aside, if Moonlight makes live streaming work with Netflix for linux, I’ve got no problem with that. They talked on their site about how their web services are still in their infancy and they are looking to improve them much more in the future. One can only hope that that includes “add support for Firefox on linux”. Boxee apparently has some sort of beta support for this, but Boxee is still in closed beta it’s self. Ahh well, I guess I can wait in the meantime.
I’ve finally gone and done it. The WRT54g that I have used as my router to the internet has served well all these years but since a lot of the stuff in my house is wireless, there has been a conflict of interest when it comes to using wireless and doing anything else that requires the internet.
For a long time I wanted to use Vyatta because it sounded really cool and because I had the extra computer laying around to run it. Well, yesterday was the day. Equipped with a gig switch, I replaced the WRT54g with an old desktop running Vyatta and stuck it between the switch and Mr. DSL.
It took a bit of reading their documentation and browsing the net, but in about 2 hours I had set everything up, got NAT working and ports forwarded to the necessary computers. Vyatta is a really cool product. I’m interested in doing a VPN next. I’m 2 days away from axing cable too. I’m glad I’ve been able to find new things to do to replace that. It’s been difficult to break the habit though; as Joe would attest.
