What's it all about, Alfie?

The guest wireless access provided at work is nice, it's fast, but to use it I can't use Adium to get access to my instant message systems. They need to log all chat/IM on their networks - guest or no, and because of that, they aren't currently allowing IM on the 'guest' part of the network. Seems very reasonable - it's regulations, after all. So I was thinking more about the V740 EVDO card from Verizon. It's up to 1.4Mb down, and 800kb up... not fantastic speed, but it's completely wireless, and that's interesting for a lot of reasons.

If we went on a trip to Dad's house, then we'd have the internet. Not bad. If we went on vacation in the US, I'd be online. Not bad. The Metra - nice. I'd really be able to do some work just about anywhere.

But it's $60/mo, and with the new job and going from hourly to 'base + bonus' it's not something I was sure we wanted to add to the monthly load. When I asked Liza about it she said I should do it to be able to talk to Jeremy and Troy, but she was very unhappy with Comcast's Extreme 50 service. She's been saying since we upgraded that it was, in fact, slower than the older service which I think was 12MB down, 2MB up. In theory, that should be impossible. But Liza uses her box a lot and from her point of view, the extra $80/month was making things worse, not better.

So it was clear what we needed to do: Move back to the Comcast Ultra - 30MB down, 5 MB up, and save the $80 a month (they had upgraded the speeds on every price point) and then take some of that and get the Verizon service. That way, I can use the Shop's guest wireless if I need to download some massive file - like an update to Xcode, or something, but for the most part, use that and not the guest wireless and get back to Adium.

So I told Liza to do the Comcast move - as she also wanted to remove some sports package we have that we don't need, and when she tells me that it's done, I'll order the Verizon card from Amazon where it's only a penny ($0.01) with the required 2 year service contract. That's about $129 cheaper than going to the Verizon store. Why? No idea, but it is.

In the end, I'll be able to use Adium as I want without any problems, and still have the speed when I need it, and be mobile if I really want it. Not bad.

[3/14] UPDATE: I'm pretty miffed at Amazon and Verizon. Here's what happened: I ordered the V740 card from Amazon for $0.01. They said that Verizon rejected my credit application and that I needed to call Verizon and clear it up. So I did. They explained that they don't allow a second account on the same SSN as an existing account - I said that's OK, I want it on my primary account anyway. They said I'd have to have Amazon re-send it and they'd take care of it. So I called Amazon, and after four people, I got to someone that finally said I'd hear from someone in 24 hrs. What?! This is Amazon - I could have ordered a book and had it in hand in that time. What's up with that?

So I waited, and a little later today I heard from them that the reason I can't have the V740 card is because I'm not a new customer. The discounts are only for new customers. Fine. So I can't get it from Amazon. Pitty, they didn't say anything about that in the order form, but that's life. So I decided that I'd just go to the Verizon store in Bolingbrook today and get the card there.

Not so fast, me bucko! The Verizon store doesn't carry them! There's one in the case, but none to be sold. I can't believe that they can't carry at least one! But they didn't. So now I'm waiting for this Tuesday when one will arrive in the mail and I'll be able to activate it and then I'll be able to get access from work without using the guest wireless account. What an endeavor.

This morning, most likely due to the new iPod Shuffle Apple released yesterday, there's a new iTunes and a corresponding update to Front Row on Software Update. There seems to be a few nice new features in iTunes - Genius Bar in Movies and TV Shows - that'll be interesting to see what it thinks I'll like, and a few Parental Controls on iTunes U, but for the most part, it's the new Shuffle that makes the reason for upgrade important.

Not that I plan on getting one, but I want to stay current, as always.

I have to say that it felt really good today to have a smooth day - no worries, no sense that I'm totally behind everything... I know it's going to take time, but it's just so unusual for me to be so new, it was a little unsettling. This team, friends, and Liza, as always, have really helped me through these tough days. Oh, I'm sure they aren't all gone, but I've been around the block a few times, and once I get my feet firmly on the new ground, I'm not worried about that.

In a few days, I'll be here a week. That's a big milestone for me. Also, it'll mean one guy is back and I need to get a good understanding of his project so we can expand/enhance it and deliver it to more desks in the firm. It'll be exciting to see all the phases of that here, and then get even more comfortable with the process.

Yes, things are getting better, and I'm very glad for that.

Well... I had a better day today. Sure, it's still Day 2, and I mean really - what can I expect from myself, here, but I'm hardest on myself and strive to make a difference even when there's no possible serious expectation of same. After all, if I had been at my old job and a new guy came in on Day 2, would I expect him to make a significant difference? Nope. I'd want him to learn how things are done - then make the significant difference.

I'm sure in a month, this will all seem like a bad dream, but I have to live it now, and it's uncomfortable, but getting better. I think it's important to show the kids that even adults are as uncomfortable starting a new job as they are going to a new school - or starting their first job. It's human nature.

But I had a few flashes of good today, and that's keeping me going. I know I can do this, it's just going to take time to get going.

Wow... I'm not a big fan of change, as I feel very much like a fish out of water - whether I am or not. Today was no exception. It's a fantastically interesting place - lots of ideas, lots of activity, lots of interesting things to do... and tons to learn. I get the basics of what they are doing, but all the specific terminology is new - but not horribly hard to learn.

Still, it takes time and I need to keep at it until I feel a little more comfortable. Then I'll get into a better groove and be able to make progress on the things they want me to get working on.

Exciting times.

There's a pretty decent lightweight word processor called Bean out there for the Mac, and I noticed today that ver 2.2 was just released. The real advantage of Bean is that it's less than Pages, but more than TextEdit, and reads/writes Microsoft Word docs pretty nicely. It's not spectacular, but it's a wonderful little tool for a niche that so often goes unnoticed by the major players.

When I started using the Safari 4 Public Beta, the changes in the NSAttributedString caused VoodooPad Pro to not render text properly all the time. So when a new version was available, I upgraded and the problem went away. Now the guys at Flying Meat Inc, have released the official update to VoodooPad and I got it.

There are a few additional changes in the package, but the vast majority were in the pre-release I was using for the last week or so. It's a great place to put all those little notes, etc. that might otherwise find their way to post-its that could get lost, etc. Great tool for organization.

I saw a tweet from Wil Shipley about problems with the socket communications, and I felt for him... it's not a lot of fun getting your socket library working with all the problems that can arise in networking code, and Gus Mueller tweeted that he needed to look at BLIP. So I took a little look-see and realized that for Mac OS X, it is probably something I need to look at deeper.

There are a ton of things to remember to make a socket library work well in all kinds of conditions. I've spent the better part of a year getting one written in C++ for both linux and solaris - where the differences are really more striking than you'd expect, and I know it's not easy. So I'm all for making use of something that's already there - assuming it's written well, and flexible enough to allow me to do what I want to do without having to sacrifice something in order to work with the library.

BLIP looks to be a pretty nice system. It's written in ObjC and meant to work with the Mac OS X frameworks. There are classes for listening and connecting, for sending and receiving packets of information... it looks pretty good. It appears to be designed for the primary activity being information request/response, and that's nice as it's a big chunk of what I do, but there's also the more interactive things (chat) and FTP, and such. All nice to have in a toolkit.

Like I said... I need to give it a second look.

Well... June 25^th, 2001 to March 3^rd, 2009 - that's 2811 days - 7 years, 8 months and 9 days. That's a long time. There's been a lot of things that have happened in that time. The kids were a lot younger... I was a lot younger... and in the years a lot of things have changed... and a lot of things haven't.

I remember first coding the MarketMash client in Java on JBuilder on Windows. There was a lot to learn about the infrastructure I was going to be using, and then there was the "Server". This giant mysterious box that (set of boxes, actually) that were the "other end" of the calculations. I can remember there being a lot of problems in the beginning - still really building the way that the code needed to be built. But it was important to minimize the downtime and get the most features out to the client as quickly as possible.

There were a lot of interesting projects - the CacheStation... the MarketData Server... lots of projects that rose out of the ashes of other people's mistakes or poorly written systems to become some of the best code I've ever written. Stable, solid, reliable... just like a toaster.

There have been a lot of characters over the years as well. I'm proud to say that I count the traders as some of my biggest fans. They appreciated the productivity, and understood that "all politics are local" (great quote to me from a trader). They liked what I could do for them, and I did too. There have been exceptions... one trader accusing me of being racist... another refusing to let me eat lunch until I explained some of the workings of a project to him... not all great memories, but all very valuable ones.

I've had the joy to work with some of the finest people I know. I've also had the pleasure of working with some of the worst, and yes, I mean pleasure. If it hadn't been for these people, I'd have never known how really horrible some people can be to others, and duplicitous to boot. It's a lesson that I need to constantly remember in this business where you need to make sure you understand who your friends really are.

I'm winding down... packing things up... having a last burrito for the road. It's going to be a mixed-bag, I'm sure. Some people scrambling to get a little more knowledge from me, and that's going to be stressful for them - and me. But in the end, when I walk out the door for the last time, it's just that - the last time.

Lots to remember... and never forget.

This morning I saw that Firefox 3.0.7 was released and so I updated it on my laptop. I'm sure it's just another round of 'security and stability' enhancements, but hey, I use it every day and I might as well be as secure and stable as possible. There's no reason to tempt fate and ask for problems.

It's still not as nice as the new Safari 4 Beta, but hey... they don't have all the Apple developers working on it either. I have to say, Firefox is nice for compatibility, but Safari is the best browsing experience I've ever had.