Internet Solutions?

So I've just opened an ADSL account for my business with a company called Internet Solutions. Now I dunno how it works outside South Africa but in order to get an unshaped, uncapped ADSL service with 5 static IP addresses, you have to accept a service where they lock down the router so that you can't configure it yourself.

So the preconfigured router is delivered to my office this afternoon and like any thoughtful manager, I decide that I will connect it up after work hours so that my entire office is not plunged into information darkness. I plug it in and then realise that I need to get a local IP address for the router so that we can set the network up on it. I call internet solutions and all the setup engineers ave gone home at 5PM. That needs no 24 hour setup support from South Africa's biggest (or second biggest) ISP. WTF!?!?!?!

The call center agents blatantly tell you that it is against company policy to put you through to the tech department. I know that internet solutions uses ITIL and marvel to keep their customers happy. Well maybe internet solutions is a bad example but this sort of behaviour put a terrible light o ITIL and Marvel as I am forced to lay my frustrations onto a clueless girl0friday who can't give me first line support.

F^*k ITIL. I will never implement it. I will much rather go with Microsoft Operations Framework or some framework that allows my service company to sort out small problems in an agile manner. F$^k Marvel as it supports ITIL which forces me to deal with 'off the steet' call center agents when I have a problem of a technical nature.

Anybody interested in buying an ADSL service in South Africa? Internet Solutions is NOT your answer. I get MUCH better service from AXXESS which is my small time home ISP. At least they feel the need to make their customers happy.

POWER NAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So if you read my previous post you would know that I haven't slept in quite a while. Well at about 10 this morning my eyelids were so heavy, I had to POWER NAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! on my desk in plain view of all my employees. No shame, I know. But what a POWER NAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I mean, 20 minutes of light sleep got me so energised, I felt like conquering the world! I never knew that 20 minutes of rest could do that to a man! AWESOME!

I know Sir Winston Churchill used to do that and as far as rumors go, he very rarely slept a full night but rather just chilled out with a tumbler of brandy and a cigar in his armchair. I believe him to be the most effective, witty and captivating person throughout modern history so I think I'm onto someting with this whole POWER NAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! idea. Maybe I will be the Sir Winston Churchill of the IT industry one day. Even Sir Richard Branson swears by the POWER NAP!!!!!!!!!!!! He calls it a cat nap though which I find quite demeaning to such a wonderful exercise. (I'm not a cat person)

Maybe there's some sort of association between knighthood and the infamous POWER NAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Maybe my mastery of little doses of sleep will lead me to be kneeling in front of the British Monarch someday with a sword slicing towards each of my shoulders for the greatest honor of all history!

I dunno.

Until then, (or maybe sooner) you all must keep well and remember... POWER NAPS!!!!!!!!!!! are goooooooooooood!

BOB

Instant Pudding: Software Development Flavour

Bob Hillgun has become a night owl

So my biggest client phones me today concerned with a project that is ten days overdue. No given that this was a month long project, it is waaaaaaayyyy over due and I know that. My fault. I am the bad guy. But I'm gonna feel sorry for myself now and justify why it is overdue. This client, whose product is a software suite, outsourced ALL their software development to me just under two months ago. I was given a stinky pile of messy, inefficient code and told to add certain features to it. I drew up a project plan with a Gantt chart like the diligent little programmer that I am and they were like "sweet!" and I started coding. Two days later I was told that there was more work coming in terms of bug fixes. My natural instinct would be to say, "okay so do you need me to fix these bugs now and finish the project late or do you want me to finish the project on time and fix the bugs after" but like a pathetic junior developer I decided to work overtime and fix the bugs while keeping the project on time.

My girlfriend started crying because I was spending too much time in front of the computer. I had to severly ration time with the family over the xmas season and I did it all with a smile on my face in the name of keeping a rather sizable client happy. So like any normal client, they notice my ability to accomplish a lot in a small space of time. What do they do? They give me more work to 'squeeze in'. Keep in mind that I'm charging these guys a flat mothly fee and not per hour and my girlfriend has just about got a knife to her wrists for some attention. So I start juggling and like any situation where a developer has to fit in a ton of work into a teaspoon of time, I run overtime on some of the tasks. So I sit back, take a breather and say to myself. This week I NEED to rest otherwise I'll burn out and do something crazy like fire all my staff for theft of company coffee. Then I'll be running into my client's boardroom naked shouting, "I LOVE YOU GUYS!" and I would have lost them anyway.

Today the client calls me and says, how long until these bugs are fixed and those features are developed? I say, "give me half an hour to estimate the time costings of it all and I'll get back to you." I estimate that the development will take three days. I call the client and as soon as she asnswers I can hear the tension in her voice. I know that HER client has been applying a little pressure and I know that three days is too long for her but what can I do. I really can't do two all-nighters in a row this week. I WILL go insane. I say, "Hi Veronica, did you get my email with the time costings?" She says, "I just got it now, when can we have this done by?" I say, "End of Thursday." She says, "Ummmm, that's a problem.... Uhhhhh, ummmmm" I say, "Well the only way I can do it faster is to work 24 hours a day." She says, "Uhhhhhh, ummmm well the client really is breathing down our necks. And I see that you're planning on working 8 hours a day." Actually I was budgeting on 10 - 12 but that's irrelevant I suppose.

Look, so far, Veronica has been awesome to deal with. She understands that developers occasionally hit snags and that there is no such thing as bug free software. I can't fault her because I know that her client is given her massive amounts of pressure but hell, what am I supposed to do. I've lost count of the 24 hour work days that I've done over the last two months. I've been neglecting all my other projects, my friends, my family and my lovely girlfriend all in favour of this client and I can't see a break coming EVER! The money is decent but not spectacular. Ahhhh! I suppose it's my decision. A decision I couldn't ask you to make for me. I'm young, I have lots of energy and a full carton of smokes. I rate I'll just have to work all night again.

Oh well, Pearl Jam, here we come.....

Oooooooh Aaaaaaiieeee, AAAAAAIIIEEEE! I'm still alive! OOOOOHHHH aaaaaaiieeee AAAAIIIEEE! I'm still alive......

*Bob Hillgun would like to apologise for those of you who don't listen to Pearl Jam and don't know what the above line meant*

*Um. No. Wait a minute, Bob Hillgun DOES NOT APOLOGISE TO THOSE WHO ARE TOO IGNORANT TO LISTEN TO PEARL JAM RELIGOUSLY*

XAML Editor is Prohibitively Slow

Hi Yall!

So We've been working with VS2008 for some time now and the performance has been abysmal. In fact we didn't know what the hell is going on because XAML intellisense is so damn slow I feel like father time and his knuckle duster have taken a disliking to me.

Anyway I've been playing around with the XAML intellisense and have found what's hampering performance. It's the damned properties window! Close it and your XAML editor and the intellisense within will imspeed up by like 500%!

HEY PRESTO!

My Week So Far

For some reason it started off so well but then everything went to shit.

I'll tell you more about it on Monday cos I'm too busy with other weekend stuff.


Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Late Night/Early Morning Woes

So we had poker night last night. I drank that six pack of honey blondes that my folks got from a micro brewery when they were on holiday. The beer was good. Tasted like a good Wiesbier but there was definately concensus thoughout the poker club that it gave us all gas.

Rubin presented a great scottish blend called Dimple and what an awesome presentation it was. Rubin's a great speaker. He's just finished his BA in politics and is starting an LLB. I think he will make a great lawyer one day if he manages to be the kind of dramatic rebuttal type speaker, we all see in court on those totally unrealistic legal dramas. I suppose it's a bit of a pipe dream to think that Rubin will ever occupy a real life set of LA Law or The Practice but he's extremely eloquent and he puts his point across thoroughly without boring one to tears. The Dimple was good too.

Ted came late cos he had a workshop from 6pm till about 10pm but we gave him leeway to buy in at the starting rate even though blinds increased by 400%. It doesn't matter, we took him to the cleaners anyway. I sat between Gavin and Herman, they bluffed badly which really helped my game. My luck in poker seems to depend on who I'm sitting next to. If the guys on either side of me are performing badly, it seems to lift me up to poker legend status. Now I'm not saying Herman and Gavin are bad players, they just had a bad night and they were out of the game before it even really started.

To cut a long story short, a lucky flush on the river led the game to consist of John, Rubin and myself and Rubin ended up winning with me coming in on a close second.

We established some strict rules last night, which is a good thing.
Rule # 1: Anybody who unnecessarily interupts the course of play gets a 20 buck fine.
Rule # 2: If you miss two poker nights in a row, you're out. This forces everyone in the club to make a plan.
Rule # 3: Spilling a drink constitutes a 20 buck fine.
Rule # 4: After the river has been spilled, once the remaining players have met each other, they will all show each other their cards. We couldn't establish whether this was the rule for poker or not so we made it up ourselves. Anybody who knows better is strongly encouraged to leave a comment to correct our misdemeanor to the art of skillful poker.

These were all added to the existing rules which really need to be documented.

So why all the rules? I think it's because all of us are hard working individuals with manic lives and we crave a bit of structure and uniformity.

After poker Everyone left except for Rubin, Gary, Ted, John and myself. Gary was talking me through some problem I'm busy having with Cindy. He has a lot of insight into the matter because his girlfriend and Cindy are best frineds and he hears all the moaning and bitching that goes on about me.

It ended up with more whisky, some red wine and some emotional, drunken chatter. Oprah would have been most welcome if our club was not a gentleman's only club. Anyway, rules are rules and thus Ms. Winfrey was not invited.

At 3:30 AM we lefts John's house and Rubin, Gary and I drove down to the garage to buy a pie and have a cigarette.

It's wierd that such a simple affair can fill such a void in one's life. Our poker club is one of the few things that keep me sane. It's a time to reflect without having to worry about whether my girlfriend is suitably impressed. It brings my perspectve to a real level where I can base the next month's decisions in business, life and love on the advice and experience of my peers.

I would recommend joining a club yourself. It really gives me a sense of community. Online communities/clubs don't count because they don't force me to be active within them. Face to face communication is key.

The down side? Having to wake up at 6:00 AM afterwards and going to work feeling totally exhausted. AAAAAH, I'll get over it.

Women: Somebody Kill Me Please

What is is about girlfriends?

In the beginning, whatever gesture you make, whatever gifts you buy for them etc. etc. is all well appreciated.

The moment you end up doing the nasty, the appreciation switch flicks off and suddenly, when you do all that kind of stuff, you're not earning points but rather maintaining your points at a bearly acceptable level.

What I'm trying to say is that my relationship with Cindy is fast becoming more effort than what it's worth. For some godawful reason, our 1 year and 1 month anniverssary is such a big deal, that I am obliged to take her out for a night on the town. Don't get me wrong, I like taking her out but now, instead of surprising her with a great night out, she expects it. I'm running out of ideas of things to do that actually get her happy rather than just satisfied and it's becoming very very very tiring. I'll give it two months. After all, women do tend to act irrationally during certain regular intervals.

Signed,

A tired Bob Hillgun

PS....

And all I want is a decent night's sleep. It's going to be a rather long evening being lectured about over doing it on poker night.

The fact remains that I just cannot please EVERYBODY. She must learn to compromise every now and again.

For f*&%ks sake! Start a book club or something!