What's it all about, Alfie?

I've been doing a lot of thinking this morning about what's important to me. I can't deny that the main reason I'm in the job I'm in is because of the amazing pay. I mean, it's amazing. And I have to admit that the development work is fun. But I can do that anywhere - I'm a developer, after all.

But that's the point. I want to develop. I don't want to mess with Jira tasks. Especially ones that are as poorly written and duplicate the same problem, cover multiple topics, used as email, etc. It's not what a bug tracking system is ment to be doing. It's a hack. Product itself is probably fine. It's the usage.

So I've been thinking about what I want to do. I want to code.

I heard about a job today that just mentioned Mac OS X as a "plus". That single fact was enough to get me interested in the job. Simple things like the platform you really like make all the difference. Heard about another doing more Java work - same thing in reverse. I can do Java, but it's not exciting to me anymore.

I'm reading about Git - sounds fun. Why? Because it's a new way of doing the same old thing, but getting around some of the problems I've had for ages. How to do a CVS check-in on the train in the evening? Can't. Can with Git. Cool. That kind of stuff.

So as I'm sitting here thinking about what I need to be doing next, I'm realizing that a new challenge really does sound like fun. Something new to do, not change for change's sake - something interesting. We'll see what comes up.

This morning I was chatting with a good friend and we were talking about working with Git, and the next step for me is to get a good book Git like I had on CVS when I was learning it. I want to know how the repo is laid out, how to fix it, etc. I do not want to look at this as a 'black box' as that's just far far too dangerous for a developer to trust a single component. You should know how it works, just in case it might fail, so you can fix it.

Anyway, I found this book that looks to be very nice. So I ordered it as a PDF because I have my Kindle if I need to view it in that format, but I don't need another paper book. I've got a quick start on it on my Mac, and we'll see how long it takes me to get through it. I need to really understand what it's doing and then I'll feel comfortable putting my code in it. I also want to see how I want to set up anything on the home network to hold things there. Just don't know.

Which brings up another point made by my friend - get a Git hosting plan like GitHub. I have to say, I haven't been a huge fan of hosted CVS sites like SourceForge because of the licensing they put on the repos stored there. This was the reason for setting up my own CVS repo. But then I got HostMonster and I'm a huge fan of hosting now. I just have to be sure they aren't going anywhere.

So I signed up for a free GitHub account - I can upgrade it anytime to a paying account if I want to put my stuff there in a private repo, which I'll do if I decide not to set up my own Git repos at home. I certainly like the way they handle it - SSL and all, and the prices aren't too bad, but for the 'Small' plan, it's $12/month and that's $144/yr and that's more than I pay for HostMonster with a lot more storage, etc. HostMonster just doesn't seem to have Git hosting - yet. I'll have to check with them to see.

In any case, I'm getting a lot closer. Read the book, pick a hosting plan and start. Sweet.

For the last several weeks I've been getting tons of these p0rn spam chats on Adium from my MSN/Hotmail IM account. I suspected that there was a way to block all new, uninvited, contacts, but I was trying to do it through the Accounts panel, and it was even easier than I thought.

Under 'Adium' in the menu, select 'Privacy Settings...' and then select the single service and select 'Allow only contacts on my contact list'. Simple as that. Now I'm not going to get all these chats about their web cam not logging into MSN... forget it, dudes... I have a better tool for IM - Adium.

As an aside, I have to say that Google is amazing. I typed this problem in and within 5 sec. I had the answer. Amazing stuff the internet. Amazing.

This last episode with my back is proving to be a real hassle to deal with. The chair in my home office was a $99 chair (I was cheap) purchased many years ago (we had no money) and when I've had to sit in it these last few weeks it seems to make my back problems worse. I know it's the chair because I can sit in other chairs and don't get these aches that I'm getting from my office chair.

Yet I can't help it - I have to be able to get some work done. It's just a fact of the business I'm in. So I'm thinking of springing for a refurbished Aeron chair. I can get one for about $700 - half off. That's not a bad deal, and it's the exact model I've used at a previous job for a while and loved every minute of it. Excellent chair.

I have a hard time spending that much money on a chair for an office that I don't sit in on a daily basis. It is, after all, a lot of money for a chair. Heck, I can get a Lazy-Boy for that money... but it's not a good, working, office chair. I think it's time to realize that I'm not getting any younger and it's time to invest in a good chair for the rest of my professional life.

I have been reading good and bad things about the new Genius in iTunes 8 and so this morning I was looking for a specific song in my collection I hadn't listened to in a while (Please Come to Boston) and I decided to turn on the Genius and see what playlist the Genius would make with that song as the key. Low expectations... more interest than anything else.

But I was wrong... it's pretty decent. Then again, I have a pretty simplistic taste and so there was a lot of material that would be similar. Still... I have to say that their goal of trying to make easier for me to pick a song and get a neat playlist out of it is admirable.

I'm sure it'll get better, but even now, it's pretty darn good. Thanks, Apple.

Now that I updated iTunes to 8.0, I could update my iPod Touch to 2.1 - I tried earlier and it said "no go". Fair enough. It was a simple thing - plug in the iPod and a little while later it's updated. There are a fair number of 'backups' and such, but in the end, it's what needed to be done (I suppose) and that's what matters.

It's updated, has all my stuff on it and there we go. Nice.

I'm not sure I'm going to be using a lot of the features other than "faster" and "faster backups", but I have it and there was no reason not to upgrade.

This morning (finally) the Software Update had iTunes 8.0 and Quicktime 7.5.5 which was mentioned yesterday in the 'event' with Steve. It's no fun to reboot, but since Quicktime is such an integral part of the OS, it's inevitable. Anyway, we'll see if I like the new features in iTunes 8.0 as much as they think I will.

Next up is the new iPod Touch software, but I had to get this first as it was required for the latter.

Hey! This morning the guys at Panic released Coda 1.5.1 - a bug list of bug fixes for the all-in-one web development tool. They have an interesting way of doing the updates - within the app, but not with Sparkle - at least not that I can see. No matter, it's nice to see that they were so quick with the update given the time it took to get 1.5 out the door.

I do wish I did more of this kind of web development on my Mac - just because I like this tool so much. It really is a nice way to deal with the non-web app sites.

Today Steve gave another iPod/iTunes presentation and that's nice, but as expected by the rumor sites, there really wasn't a lot there that would cause anyone to stop and take notice. The new Nanos are nice, with accelerometers and bigger screens. Nice, but expected. Also, the new iPod Touch with 36 hrs of music is nice, but it's still 32GB like mine. Make it 18 hrs and 64GB - that's interesting. But I have to understand, it's all part of the Holiday Sales Cycle. They needed something new, and they delivered.

iTunes 8.0 looks nice, but again, I'm not a big user of the "auto-suggest" features of music apps. I'm pretty picky. It's nice that NBC is back in the store and they will be selling standard def and high def movies and shows. But again... nothing amazing.

Unfortunately, as expected, no new MacBook Pros. I'll have to wait. The word on the street is that October is the time to expect some news on that front. I'm just worried it'll be a marginal bump in the MacBook Pros, and focused instead on the MacBooks going aluminum like the Air. We'll have to wait and see.

I finally noticed that Fantastico at HostMonster had the update to WordPress for 2.6.1 - so I updated the two weblogs that I have there and they went off without a hitch. I have to say that it's nice to have Fantastico, as I've done this manually and it's a lot of crummy details, and this way it is one click and about 30 seconds and it's done. Very nice.

Unfortunately, as soon as I get WordPress to 2.6.1 it's telling me that 2.6.2 is out and that I need to upgrade. Tough... I'm going to have to wait for Fantastico and it's upgrade scripts. There's no reason to push the envelope that fast.

Oh... and I'd heard that the remote publishing was going to be turned off by default in 2.6 - but as I looked in my settings for the weblogs, I noticed that the XML-RPC and Atom publishing were turned on by default. So maybe they changed their minds. Would be nice to see they responded to the requests of users like me.