My Life With IT

Was wondering how the heck do I put in my tweets when Wordpress doesn’t allow any JavaScripts, thankfully, as a late adopter, it’s always a good idea to be a late adopter, there’s a plugin for it. Cool. Done by Alex King.

Here’s how to integrate Twitter into Wordpress by Lorelle. Let’s see how soon I can use the FTP to do this.

I had a discussion with a friend of mine this afternoon. We have just completed that final exam for the step towards our degree and I was telling her that I want to get out of programming because I feel that I am no longer able to chase after the latest technology. I do wonder if it’s due to my leaving of a challenging company a few months back. It is not the first time since I left that company and reviewed my career path. I have been thinking if I should get out of IT and do something else.

Another friend told me that life’s short, we have to do whatever we feel is the right time to execute. I’ve been doing Lotus Notes development for 4 years and I think I’m not cut out for it. Maybe the lack of challenges in the current company? I am still able to earn my keep and there is not much pressure on the system being forced to work “bug-free” during UAT.

I don’t have any users calling me. Yet. Or I need a new learning curve because I keep ending up doing client based Notes applications instead of web based Notes applications that I prefer. I like that because it’s easier to control user actions. They won’t use the keyboard “Esc” key to close a document that they don’t want to save. I don’t have so many fields to place the Formula individually.

Maybe I’m asking for too much. Who would want to develop web based applications when it takes longer to complete than a client based? Me, I guess. I like playing around with CSS and JavaScript.

Maybe I am really just not cut out for IT.

I actually miss the challenge of developing web applications using Lotus Notes. I haven’t been doing it for half a year and am getting rusty with the knowledge. I wonder if I would ever get to design web applications for this company in future or learn some new programming language.

It seems that I haven’t been keeping myself updated with the functions that can be done in views for Domino. Domino uses up on my precious RAM and I can’t bear to install trials in my laptop for fiddling purposes during my personal time.

I’m still playing around with the idea of a spare computer to run Domino.

I’m in a dilemma. I have been asked to attend an interview that requires a daily commute of estimated 45 minutes (excluding waiting time) to travel from my home to work. It’s not confirmed yet but I do need to know if what I’m going to do is worth it. I’m getting nervous about the interview.

The good thing about this interview is that the scope would be what I’m familiar with and I get to continue using my skills. The worrisome thing is that I worry too much about it even though I’ve yet to attend the interview and see my potential boss. Crazy, right?

The only process I hate about finding new jobs is the interview. I get very nervous about it. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m afraid that I’d just embarrass myself, say the wrong things, ask stupid questions, etc. There’s no easy route to getting that job because they want the best candidate and I want the best job.

I’m looking at Agent Monitor (DAF) by Joerg Reck. I like the fact that I don’t have to go to the databases to amend the codes so that the agent monitor can work. Sweet. I just click on Add Database and the system does all the necessary additions.

I’m still trying to figure out the Administration section though. I’m not sure why the information is mostly of the Agent Monitor. It took me some time to figure how to get to it, I had to click on Actions, Tool -> Administration. As I don’t have a development server to test the function, which is a real pity, I encountered this prompt in German. How very friendly. Thank goodness I understood the Formula used.

The next thing I’m trying to figure out is why there’s a web version of it. I can’t load it using local no matter what I tried. In the past, I thought it was something to do with FrontPage. Here, I have no use for FrontPage, so I can’t figure out why my Domino is unable to load the system for me to see the interface. Again, there are some information in German. So, why wasn’t it highlighted in the description?

I wanted to change the design so that it will notify more than 1 email but can’t seem to make it work. I think the rationale behind allowing to monitor some agents and not all to be sent via email makes sense. There are critical agents that do need to be monitored but not all of them needs to be emailed.

This monitor purges the log every 7 days by its scheduled agent. Once I manage to figure out how to make it from settings instead of by the agent itself, I shall have to see how I can make this work in the server.

I like its way of adding agents without having to amend the codes in the existing databases. Imagine having to modify 65 existing databases. I can faint.

The Internet has gotten out of control. We have pop-ups in all sorts of forms; from new window to the floating thingy that won’t go away unless you click on the tiny cross. There are also irritating pop-unders that escape the clutches of my pop-up blockers. I simply hate it when I’m happily clicking on a link that might be related to what I’m looking only to have ads placed all over the page covering the top 3/4 of it. I don’t want to scroll down to find that it’s only a paragraph.

I like to read blogs because it’s interesting to hear from other people’s heartfelt opinions. However, I have come across blogs that have too much ads, Google links, music that is not to my taste blaring the repeated chorus that only the blog author loves, large images that take eons to load and poor spelling. If I were more irritated, I’d pick on the poorly constructed grammar.

Grammar is like, you know, like so important because if the whole sentence is to like consists of nothing but like a lot of likes that take up like 70% of this sentence, you would like, get so like turned off. Another way to irritate others is to make the sentences and paragraphs full of abbreviations, mis-spellings and slangs such as “I luv tis teddy lei! Dad buy it for me last nite coz I beg and beg him for it! Sis was giving me d evil eye n I din care lor! I call anna 2 tel her abt d teddy n she ooooo n ahhhhh say i must show her lor n julie call me next n i told her i got d teddy she also scream lor. She loud sia. i tot i went deaf juz hearing her scream. Julie, next time, dun scream so loud la.” To prevent myself from being flamed and spammed, I had to create the example.

I don’t understand the rationale behind the Flash being loaded before I can get to the actual site to find out the information that I want. The movie doesn’t tell me anything about the site except that it’s to show off the developer’s skills. Please don’t load it for 10 seconds and allow me click on the “Go to <insert site name>” only after the movie has finished or “Skip intro” in a tiny secluded corner that I have to look for it. I simply hate clicking on unnecessary links. I want useful links.

Everyone’s tastes are different too. Some prefer to have black background and white text on their websites. I know you have a good blog/site to read but if I have to strain my eyes, I won’t be going to your blog/site again. I don’t want to copy and paste in my Word document to waste my precious RAM either. I’ve come across sites whereby the background is red and the text is white or black. Red is not a good colour for the eyes. Please stop straining my eyes. Red is for highlighting a point or emphasizing a word.

I put my links to open new windows sometimes. I’m not sure why but I’ve been reducing it because there are people who hate to waste their resources on so many opened windows. IE7 has tabs to fight with Firefox now. However, I like Firefox’s new tab opening where it’s an empty URL instead of IE7 telling me what the tabs are all about. Once, yes, but every single time I click on New Tab, no. Lorelle best sums up the things that shouldn’t be irritating our surfing experience here.

A quick look at the UI of the USD100 laptop by Jeff Atwood at Coding Horror. I was wondering what sort of UI that Mr Negroponte had in mind and Jeff has kindly provided the screenshot of the UI. I have read about this being mass built for the kids in Libya, if my memory serves me correct.

The one thing that sticks to my mind is that Mr Negroponte stated in the article the following:

“In fact, one of the saddest but most common conditions in elementary school computer labs (when they exist in the developing world), is the children are being trained to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint,” Negroponte wrote in an e-mail interview. “I consider that criminal, because children should be making things, communicating, exploring, sharing, not running office automation tools.”

Which I didn’t realise until he stated his main objective behind making the One Laptop campaign. The kids are being taught Word, Excel and PowerPoint, software that we are using now. The kids are only 7 to 10 and they are being trained to be office workers 10 years ahead.

I wonder if there are any kids being taught to learn Java or JavaScript from age 7 onwards. I wonder if we’re moving towards a society of nothing but office automation humans who don’t know how to enjoy the simple life any more.