From “Long Distance, yet again” Dept.
At 2:49:14 PM Jen told me that Accenture was shipping her off to Vancouver, BC.
She leaves Monday, next week.
The project is until March at least.
I’m bummed.
She’ll be back on the weekends, and I could be there on the weekends.
But Still…..
-T
Hey All,
Just wanted to run through some stuff before I go to bed. Got to keep you all updated (basically Kev and Flo, etc.).
From “There is a fly in my Soup-Dumpling” Dept.
Earlier in the week, Jen had told me that we were going to go out on Friday night with her friend Andrew. Well, I’m not sure if he’s even a friend, actually. One weekend in Boston bunking in the same room with him and 5 others would not really qualify him as a friend in my book, but people are different.
So I admit, I wasn’t thrilled. I basically got the low-down on this Andrew guy from Flo, Kevin and Jen, so I kind of knew what to expect. In short, my presumptions of Andrew were slightly negative; he’s kind of goofy.
I wasn’t too hyped on going out with him on Friday. I was whining to Jen about having to “entertain him for the entire evening,” and “not wanting to go clubbing.”
After meeting him though, I definitely was way out-of-line. He’s a swell guy. The only bad thing I can say about him was that he praises everything.
It kind of got annoying. I swear, you could server this guy a plate full of cow manure and he’d like it.
We had dinner at a Shanghainese Restaurant called “Ding Dai Fung” in First Markham Place. They specialize in “Soup Dumplings”. Soup Dumplings are steamed, pork-filled [or any meat] dumplings that when eaten release a lot of juice [soup]. They’re actually overflowing with soup/juice. Very Yummy.
Andrew brought over two friends too, Steve and Eva. They were cool.
Flo and I ordered:
For Dessert:
Jen, Flo and I each ordered a glass of chilled “soybean milk”.
We ordered way too much. It was crazy. We could have done without two dishes, easily. With Andrew’s motivational pep-talks however, we actually finished everything.
We then went to Chapters across the street to walk off our belly full of food.
And then we saw Signs at the Cineplex Odeon.
I liked it.
It’s a movie about recovering one’s faith/spirituality. It is set beneath an alien-invasion backdrop in a rural community. It could have been set in New York with a terrorist attack, and it would have been the same. The alien-thing is just a catalyst for character development.
There were some really tense moments in the movie.
However, answer me this: “Why would aliens attack a planet that is covered by 70% of the substance that is their weakness?”
It would be like Superman attacking a planet made out of 70% green Kryptonite.
Stupid.
All of us liked the movie.
Eric saw it and he liked it too, but most of his friends were disappointed.
Kevin was disappointed as well.
From the “Saturday Walk in the Park” Dept.
Saturday evening, Jen and I went down to Unionville Main Street to walk along the trail in Toogood Pond. It was a beautiful evening: no humidity, comfortable temperature, clear skies. It was a beautiful twilight.
We had some gelato at the gelato stand. Jen got Lindt Milk-chocolate, and I got Pistaccio.
It was a nice evening.
We held hands most of the time.
Earlier in the day we hand went to Loblaws and picked up some ingredients for Chicken Pesto Linguine with Fried Red Peppers, and an salad with fresh tomatoes , pine nuts, goat cheese, and advocado slices.
We also found this nice little Italian restaurant called “The Groto on Main”. Can’t wait to try it out.
Sunday I tuned out and didn’t do much.
From the “Monday Chores” Dept.
Did a lot of chores all day. Bagged some clothes for donation. Cleaned out the guest room of University stuff that I had been collecting over the years.
Lots of junk, but there were some memorable finds:
Now the guest room is clean.
I’m planning to set up a bed in the morning. At least Kev has a real place to sleep now.
If I have time, I’ll throw in a network cable too and a fold-out table. Then Kev and I can MSN each other from across the landing.
Just like old times back in 379 Erb St.
Went out with Jen for coffee and conversation at the Second Cup near her house.
-T
From the “Weed” Dept.
Like I mentioned before, I actually wrote up a nice blog about the some of the prior events…
Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday afternoon I was pulling weeds from my interlocked driveway.
It’s really bad…
Almost done though. One more day and I’m finished.
My brothers are lazy bastards.
This type of menial work really makes you humble.
From the “What am I getting myself into” Dept.
Jen messaged me on Wednesday and told me that her mom had purchased a condo. It’s at a plot of land near the Scarborough Town Centre. It’s a one-bedroom condo. Jen messaged me, because her mom wanted to know if we wanted a Den/Living area with the condo, for an extra $15 000 CDN. The condo isn’t ready for posession until late 2005/2006.
‘Umm, that’s a little presumptious,’ I thought.
Talk like that makes me uncomfortable. I kid you not.
I was talking to Jen—apparently the bedroom is 10-feet by 11-feet in area.
I’m like, “But my bedroom at home is 16 feet by 13 feet.”
Then the “paranoid delusional” side of me kicked in:
“You’re trying to trap me,” I accused.
And then that dry sense of humour came up:
“So I guess I have to marry by 2006, eh?”
LOL.
Ah.. life is too funny.
I’m a bit uncomfortable about this. Then again, I already know a handfull of people who have already bought houses and they’re no older than I (25-years old). I’m also glad that Jen’s mom can see Jen and I together in the future. So that is a vote of confidence from her.
So all in all, it’s a positive thing.
While it’s not hard to believe that this will be our first place together, I think Jen’s mom has other plans. She probably plans to sell the condo for profit. Condo living here in TO is a hot realty sector to be in at the moment.
By the way, Jen and I decided to go with the den.
From the “Life in the GUI Lane” Dept.
That’s G.U.I. for Graphical User Interface.
I found some interesting blogs on-line written by two of the main UI coders from the Mozilla Project, the opensource browser that is the basis for Netscape 6.x/7.x and others (Chimera, Galeon, K-meleon, etc.).
Mozilla is probably the fastest browser on the OS X market (although that prize is highly questionable), but it definitely is a lot better than IE 5.1.2 for Mac OS X. However, it suffers from poor GUI design and “feature creep” (they made a browser that did too much).
It’s far from elegant in my opinion.
I have always wondered who were the people who designed the UI for Mozilla ( I had suspected that it was just a developer with no UI experience ). I think these guys know they’re stuff, but it’s obvious (by their blogs and by the product itself) that no one really listens to them.
Here are their links:
MPT – The Weblog of Matthew Thomas
Confessions of a Mozillian – Dave Hyatt
Interesting stuff.
I actually submitted some data to the GNOME Desktop Project, back in Aug 2001. Linux was riding high, and they had just published their first Usability Report [920K PDF].
I’ve always flirted with Linux (back in the Day when Mandrake 6.0 was hot off the press). I’ve also tried Mandrake 7.0, 7.1, 8.0 and Slackware 8.0. I’d get into these phases where I dream of a life without Microsoft, I install Linux, play around with it for a few weeks, and then boot into Windows to play my games and surf the net.
What makes linux hard to use? Is it a bad UI? A lack of useful Apps? A lack of games?
All of the above and more. If I ever get a spare computer, I’ll turn it to a Linux box, hell, I should just get rid of my 4 GB Win98SE partition….
Now I have a real Unix Desktop: Mac OS X.
From the “A little bit of Info can mean a lot” Dept
Hi All,
Just wanted to write about something that happened to me today.
I had written a really nice blog last night about what had occured over the first part of the week, but I accidentally lost it.
Anyways, I’m on the bench right now, trying to drum up some more work with my favourite employer, Critical Path Inc.
I’m in the midst of writing a proposal for testing of a new product. Actually, this is the third time I’m writing it.
“Third time? Why are you writing it a third time?”
Good questions.
You see, I want to talk about how not having all the facts straight really makes life difficult. Here goes.
My first proposal for work was based on stuff from the corporate intranet. It featured a demo using TellMe’s VoiceXML parser and speech recognition software solution.
The general outline followed this flow chart:
Simple enough right?
No problem.
So Wednesday I’m chatting with my Mike, UI guru (and my boss). I was on my PC, so I don’t have an exact log of what was said, but this is the basic gist.
Tai: Hey Mike, I have a few questions about the vXML demo.
Mike: What demo are you talking about?
Tai: The vXML demo on the Intranet, and the flow diagram. I’m using it for the proposal.
Mike: You are? That stuff is ages old.
Tai: Oh.
Tai: Well, could you send me something current, then.
Great. Scrap one nearly done proposal and start another with the updated porfolio.
This first time, I feel I was partly at fault. The flow diagram was way to simple. Here’s an edited copy of what the real flow diagram looks like.
And that’s only for a small component of the login procedure.
Eek.
No problem. So I start writing a new proposal for testing. Things are going smoothly, almost done—just need to clear a few more questions with Mike.
Tai: Hey Mike, you there?
Mike: Hiya.
Tai: Got a few more questions…
Mike: Shoot.
Tai: Will TO have a working version of this when I’m there?
Mike: Working version?
Tai: Yeah.
Mike: There is no working version….
Tai: What?
Mike: Yeah.
Tai: Oh. <LONG PAUSE>
Tai: So the flows [flowcharts] are it, eh?
Mike: Yippers. We’re getting usability from the start.
Tai: I guess that’s good. Great really <LONG PAUSE>
Tai: Uh, Mike
Tai: I need some more time with that proposal.
Life is certainly an adventure when you’re a contractor.
STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!
Sigh.
And that is how I miss dinner with some friends.
So I learned an important thing today:
Cheers,
Tai
From the “I’ll Show you Fast!!!” Dept.
Hi there.
What’s faster, A Dual-1Ghz PowerMac, or a similarly priced x86-based computer?
Recently two articles were published by two reputable sources pitting Mac-based and x86-based (AMD/Intel) hardware against one another. The MacNightOwl wrote a rather interesting article using the famous “Photoshop-bake-offs” demonstrated by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computers. Charlie White, an award winning film editor and contributor to DigitalVideoediting.com performed similar benchmark testing on film compositing software.
Great articles. Both were jammed-packed with a slew graphs, analysis, etc.
So what’s the “4-1-1” (quoting a pundit that is often used by my friend David Vu)?
Well, sometimes a Mac is faster, and sometimes a PC is faster.
I see……
These type of articles really drive me insane. They’ve caused a lot controversy among the tech-elite, of which I don’t see an abatement anytime soon.
If it works for you, fine, but for me—I use whatever works best.
I guess I’ve grown out of the “How-many-FPS-can-my-computer-pump-out-in-QuakeIII” stage of live.
Not that I don’t keep up with hardware advances anymore, but benchmarks don’t tell the whole story; they never have.
These two articles above show that.
For now, I’ll just putter along on my iBook and aging AMD K6-3+ 550 MHz desktop.
From the “To Serve, or Not To Serve?” Dept
The above question is about turning your Mac OS X box into a server.
Recently, I wrote that Apple is now charging my iTools service.
Already, the more technical of the Macintosh-community have posted solutions on making your own “iTools” service, using the built-in Unix-technologies found in Apple’s own OS X.
Ironic, isn’t it? That Apple’s own OS can be used to replace the services that they now want to charge for.
Now, I’ve been thinking about doing this ever since Kevin did it. I think it’s a very convenient solution…truly ultra-chic in a Geeky sort of way. It’s just so damn cool.
Some thoughts though:
Right now, I use an ISP, blacksun.ca, to host my page and email. They offer an excellent service, top notch support, plus they’re dirt cheap. Their lite account, is only $10 CDN a month for 25 MB of Web Space, an open CGI/Perl bin, FrontPage extensions, 5 IMAP Email Addresses, plus website tracking software to boot.
They’re by far the best ISP I’ve found in Canada.
For $20 CDN a month, their business account they give you all of the above plus 100 MB Space, a shell account, PHP/mySQL, ASP, and other stuff to boot.
Amazing service. I really recommend them.
But away from the shameless plug—I think having your own server is cool.
It demonstrates that you are truly a Zen-uber-techno-L33T-user.
If I ever do free up that old Pentium-200MMX, the first thing I’m doing is installing Linux and going crazy.
Cheers
-T
From the “Roxy Blu Blues” Dept.
So this Friday, Aneil, Eric, Cris, Flo, Le, Rob, Warren, Rinki, Joyce and I went out to Roxy Blu. It was okay.
I wasn’t a fan of the music that they were playing. The DJs were mixing these Retro, 70’s inspired, Fusion Jazz House beats. It wasn’t bad, but to me, the music was meant for chillin’; I wasn’t in the mood to dance.
It’s funny, Jen really digs that type of music, and I’ve always wondered where she feels that emotional attachment from. She’s was born in 1978—so It’s not like she was a child of the seventies… (I shouldn’t be speaking either…I’m only a year older than she is). She was kind of upset that Flo, Eric, Aneil and I wanted to leave early.
Went out to Amato’s Pizza—gourmet pizza at bargain prices, I had a Vanilla Coke, wasn’t too impressed. It’s much sweeter. It doesn’t have that bite at the end that Classic Coke has, but it does have a pleasant French Vanilla taste at the end. I guess you could call it smooth, if not flat.
Besides at 2:00 AM in the morning, all that sugar and caffeine kept my awake well past 5:00 AM. Didn’t sleep well at all.
From the “Broken House” Dept.”
Sometimes I swear that the house is falling apart. First the Dryer, then the Stove, then the Washing Machine, then the central Vacuum…
The front yard is a mess, the Water Heater sprung a leak, and the Roof is leaking.
Excellent.
Well, I guess I’m fortunate in that the roof leak and the water heater leak are very small….
Besides, I’ve noticed that a lot of our neighbors are getting their houses re-roofed, so after 16 years of living here on-and-off, I think it’s high time to do something about it.
As for the Water Heater Leak, I’ll call Enbridge.
From the “Saturday Extravaganza” Dept.
Slept unwell because of the Vanilla Coke and a leaky air mattress (“What could me more comfortable than sleeping on Air?”).
Went out and watched Austin Powers 3: Gold Member. It has an absolutely great beginning. It’s better than number 2, but not as good, or as fresh as his first movie. The character Gold Member was a really stupid villain.
Jen and I then went to a Birthday BBQ @ Brenda’s house. It was nice. Lot’s of people. We left early to go downtown and hook up with some of Jen’s co-workers. Spent some time at an Irish Pub (Flonn McCool’s I think) and then went to the Keg.
[Click the More link to read more about my time with Jen’s co-workers [READ: Very Introspective.]That was an interesting experience.
Jen works at Accenture, an IT consulting firm (formerly known as Andersen Consulting). I met her co-workers Shig and Kamal. Nice guys. Shig is going to work out in BC this Monday (he’s been assigned there for a year-and-a-half!!).
Now, when I get together with co-workers, one of the things that I keep in mind is that we shouldn’t talk about work. In fact, this was a lesson I learned back in my Humantech day’s from a consultant named Jamie.
contract.”
Jamie: “Dude! Don’t talk about work now…we’re trying to have a nice evening [outside of work].”
It kind of “clicked” for me.
Now when I was with Jen and her co-workers…work is pretty much all they talked about.
Here are some informal statements that I’ve been forced <snicker> to conclude about where Jen works:
This makes for some great anecdotes, sure. However, it gets kind of irritating for the outside person looking inside (namely me).
I mentioned this to Jen while we were driving back uptown. I wondered out loud why the dinner conversation gravitated towards work at Accenture (I tried to change subjects on several occasions but was rebuffed each time). Jen didn’t know why—I think she was kind of embarrassed, actually. I could only conclude that working at Accenture—well, that makes up most of your life.
Unsettling.
Jen mentioned something anecdotal, but significant none-the-less. Apparently if a person begins work at Accenture while single, they invariably find a boyfriend/girlfriend, possibly even a husband/wife from within Accenture. Those who bring in a partner, and manage to stay together, often marry said partner. Those who bring in a partner, but break up while at Accenture usually find another person from within the company (or they leave the company and make amends with said partner)
Co-workers make strange (if not appropriate) bedfellows, i think.
Now, I would lie if I said that I didn’t have the occasional doubt or two about my relationship with Jen, but it never lessens my resolve. However, after that night—it really made me think.
Not doubt, but think. [Need to clarify that point]
Does that make any sense?
Well, regardless, I’m still in love with Jen, and I still intend to marry her, but if she begins to only talk about work…well, it’s obvious what I would do.
How about that for introspection?
Tai
From the “Psychomotor Repository” Dept.”
Hey all,
Just wanted to talk about two facts that I found out recently…something that I’ve been wondering for years…
Sometimes as I lie in bed, right before I fall asleep—I’ll jerk up awake in a rather violent “twitch”.
Now I know that this doesn’t sound to interesting, in fact, I’m sure all of you who are reading this right now know that this is a common occurence.
Well, over the years I’ve come to realise and sense this “half-awake, half-asleep” state. I also observed that the “twitch” was localized to a specific body part; the body part that I was half-dreaming about.
Now the amazing thing is that this phenomenon actually has a name.
It’s called a “Myoclonic Twitch“ or “Hypnic Twitch“.
How did I find this out? Well, I was reading a book, a graphic novel, written by Neil Gaiman….
I checked the word out, apparently “Myoclonic Twitch” is a little old, and the correct, or modern way to say it is “Hypnic Twitch”.
I’m finally glad that this phenomena has a name. Byron is happy because he can now explain why he punched Cris in the face while sleeping.
From the “Big Brother is Watching” Dept.
Aneil and Eric pointed this out to me.
Apparently there is a list of words that cannot be used as your MSN Messenger handle. They include, but are not limited to:
Weird.
As Eric said in the following MSN conversation:
From the “Mac’s are sooo much more expensive than a PC” Dept.
Hi all,
Just wanted to rant about how my favourite computer company is doing some very bad things to its loyal supporters.
In December 2001 I purchased a top of the line iBook from Apple Computer for just over $3000 CDN.
Specs for you tech-heads:
It weighs less than 5 lbs, has firewire and USB to boot—it’s pretty sweet.
I love the size and form-factor.
Now, my main beef with the iBook is that the operating system really bogs down what I feel is reasonably fast hardware. I don’t think you’ll get any arguments from anyone who uses Apple’s Mac OS X. It’s downright pokey on my iBook.
Now, currently the OS is at version 10.1.5, but a new version of Mac OS X, labelled 10.2, and codenamed, Jaguar, will be released August 27th.
Now, from what I’ve read, the OS is suppose to pack a wallop of a performance increase, even on older hardware. Although, I daresay that my 7-month old iBook is old.
Finally, an OS upgrade that doesn’t slow down your computer.
Isn’t this the Ulgiest Product Packaging you’ve ever seen?Here’s the problem: There’s no upgrade deal for it. I have to buy a full version of OS 10.2 at $195 CDN. That’s pricey.
To add insult-to-injury, Apple iTools, a free service that Apple provided to its customers (a 5 MB @mac.com IMAP Email account, 20MB of online Files storage, a greeting card service and a Webpage/photo gallery), that was advertised on the box that my iBook shipped no less, is now requiring users to pay $100 USD to keep their accounts active.
Now, I don’t use iTools all that much, but damn yo! that’s not the way you keep customers, or make PC users switch to the mac platform….
I should note that the newly rebranded iTools, called .Mac (dot-mac), does add significant functionality (15 MB IMAP email account, 100 MB of File storage, back-up software for you computer, Anti-Viral program for your computer, Online Calendar, etc).
<sigh>
Needless to say, a lot of people in the Macintosh community feel betrayed.
Personally, I don’t blame Apple. The days were Free-stuff on the Internet are way over—it costs money to run their service. However, I’m pissed because Apple didn’t give me much of a choice. Well, no choices at all, really.
You either spend the money to upgrade the operating system to 10.2, or you stay with 10.1.5.
You either spend the money to upgrade to the .MAC service, or you drop your iTools account and email account.
Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t care. Microsoft does this all the time with their OS.
However, it’s the principle of it. Mac OS X is an “incomplete” operating system. It’s cool, it looks great, but it lacks certain functionality, speed and polish. Even Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO admits it, “Mac OS 10.1 is only half-way there“, and won’t be finished until some time in 2003 when OS XI (10.3?) is released. A lot of people are asking, why should I pay for functionality that was promised all the way back when OS 10.0 was release back in May 2001? Moreover, a lot of people feel that they already pay a premium for the hardware (they do) and that the OS and especially the iTools/.Mac service was bundled with the the hardware.
Apple is a hardware company, right?
It sucks to own a Macintosh computer these days.
I’m very fortunate that I didn’t switch all my email and stuff over to iTools, or I’d be fleeced for an account that was advertised as a free service to all Mac users.
I think the OS upgrade is worth it. So I’ll spend the $200 CDN on that.
As for the new .Mac service (iTools), I’d rather spend my money upgrading the functionality of this site (PHP-mySQL support + 100 MB storage).
Now I don’t know how everyone else feels about this. I truly think that mac’s are more expensive than PCs, but you get what you pay for I feel. I just wish I had a choice.
Cheers,
Tai
Hey all,
I’ve think I’ve vacuumed my house 3 times since I got the Hoover. The floors seem to be bereft of dust (human skin cells now).
That’s definitely a good thing.
Some things that have happened since I last wrote:
Chung invited a bunch of us (Kev, Buk, Ha, Karen, Jesse, and myself) to a condo in Collingwood, ON.
This condo was amazing. 3 Bedrooms, 4 double beds, 3 bathrooms—thanks to Raymond for supplying us with the sweet pad for the 3 days we were there.
The weather was great too with the exception for Thursday (which rained). Atleast my legs are no longer bone white.
Very cool, lots of fun.
Highlights:
Last Saturday, we gathered at TONIC night club I had a great time. Jen and I don’t normally club together (on account that we were off term from each other, and I was usually away from TO when we first started going out). It was a total Waterloo Reunion….one big Asian Jam. Just like back in the day…
I had a great time (lots of great people, it was Matt’s b-day, and there were a lot of HOT Asian chicks).
Jen had an okay time: people kept stepping on her feet.
Still have half a roll of film to develop…when I finish the roll, if I ever, I’ll post them online.
Cheers,
-T
From the “Eek, my house is filthy” Dept.
Hi All,
Another untimely update from your friendly, neighborhood Usability Specialist. Last week, I was in the zone, working like a madman to finish my deliverables for Critical Path. Whew…sometimes, I have to admit, I even manage to impress myself.
I was really focused, and super productive.
Umm, this weekend past, I was suppose to go to Cris’s BBQ, but had to pass because of work obligations (yet again). Too bad, a lot of people were there, and it sounded like they all had a good time.
One great thing though: I bought a new vaccuum for the house.
For those of you who don’t know, the appliances in my house seem to be dying off, one-after-the-other.
First the Dryer and the oven, then the Washing Machine, and then the Central Vacuum.
So we had to repair the dryer, replace the washing machine, and this weekend past, bought a new vacuum.
Instead of replacing the Central Vacuum, we decided to go back to an upright.
$350 CDN for a Hoover WindTunnel Bagless – U5750900.
I must say, I am very impressed with it.
It’s ugly (but then again, I don’t think aesthetics were on the minds of the product designers when this thing was being built), but man does it suck—and I mean that in a good way.
This thing was picking stuff from our carpet that really made my family open our eyes. Jeez. We had to change the cannister 3 or 4 times when we cleaned the house. EEK.
My room alone filled up 1/3 of the cannister. It even managed to pick up Jen’s hair.
Pros:
Cons:
I found that if the HEPA filter gets completely covered in Dust, you have to remove it and tap the walls of the filter in order to knock off the sides of the filter to improve the airflow. That seems to stop the dust from leaking from the cannister.
I honestly think my house smells cleaner.
We will probably vaccuum again just to make sure the carpets are clean.
Cheers,
-T
