Archive for March, 2006
Project
After six weeks of work, including many extra hours over the past couple of weeks, my latest work project launched today.
It’s been a while since I was responsible for almost all the code on a new site, and it’s certainly been a fun six weeks being back in the front seat for a project again, instead of driving everyone else and just handling things on the periphery. I know there’s more development ahead too, so it’s not completely over, but the satisfaction of seeing your work made available to the larger public sphere is still there.
This means I’ve been involved in two public releases this week. It’s almost becoming a habit.
Flooded
For the second time this week, I walked into my bathroom and found the floor flooded with water. My months of dog pee mopping experience mean that I can clean this up quickly, but it’s a worrying turn of events because it’s a LOT of water.
I looked at the ceiling to see if anything might be coming down from there, but it doesn’t seem like it. And looking around the edges of the bath and the edges of the sink doesn’t reveal any sources of liquid either, so I’m just super confused. I have a water ghost.
Autoupgrade
Those with Alertbear should be seeing an autoupgrade to v1.04 winging their way along about now. This version fixed all the known bugs, adds Unicode support, adds a Mark all Read option and improves the performance of the animations in the hope of removing the last of the flicker.
Plans are already afoot for where it’s going next, but we needed to get this out there quickly to fix a crashing bug with the flashing icon.
Innovative
So apparently we’re innovative. Which is certainly a high compliment to pay. The blogosphere is rife with comment and criticism over the launch of Alertbear. Most of them agreed that it would be good for new users or those without too many feeds, but that it might become difficult if you had hundreds, which is all fine. People generally seemed to like the fact somebody had tried something new.
Not realising of course that Bearkey Alerts did something very similar three years ago. So ahead of my time.
A good solid number of diggs, lots of downloads, a lot of email with suggestions, and er, some bugs. We’ll get them fixed up pretty quickly, don’t you worry. As for the suggestions, most of them wanted a Mac version. The fact is though, Francis doesn’t have a Mac, and even though I do, my Cocoa skills just aren’t up to the job, so I don’t think it’s coming any time soon (even though I’m typing this on one).
I did find the Mac loving quite strange, not just on the email, but in the digg comments as well. When I released Webdog all those years ago (1998, 1999?) I didn’t once get an email asking for a Mac version. But yet nowadays, that’s what the people want to see. I guess Apple really have entered the collective consiousness again.
Launched
After three, four months of development, Alertbear was officially released to the public today. It’s been an interesting road of development, playing the role of designer (or dictator, depending on who you ask), seeing it all come together piece by piece into what ultimately is the most usable RSS reader out there.
Well, that’s not strictly true. If you’re an RSS whore, with 500 feeds, and a whole bunch of custom filters then Alertbear probably isn’t for you. But that’s OK, it was never meant to be. Alertbear is for those that only have a handful of feeds, who don’t have all day to sit reading every single post out there (I mean, honestly, 500 feeds, don’t you have a life?) and who find the email approach to RSS reading clunky, seeing as it requires far more interaction than necessary for what is meant to be a system that brings the news to you. Alertbear is also for those that are new to RSS, and who simply want to monitor the headlines from the BBC, or keep up with the photos on their friends Flickr account.
Of course none of this would be possible without Francis, who should really be getting all the credit here. He turned all my ideas into reality, without ever once complaining, and more than once pointing out the error of my ways.
Remaining
Looking at the remaining episodes of The West Wing, it’s nice to see that after the two episodes covering the election, there are still five remaining episodes of the season, and ultimately, the show itself.
I had worried that the final show would be the election announcement, robbing us of the chance to see what happens when you’re no longer president, how Martin Sheen returns to a normal life, and also the chance to see Josh’s proper victory dance (well, I’m somewhat assuming he’s going to win at this point, it would be an absolute television tragedy if they robbed him of it).
I’m going to be sad to see this show go, but I’ll write about that closer to the time.
Exceeded
It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve watched Bill Maher, but last nights episode with Jason Alexander really was excellent. The actor/actress position on the panel can often be hit and miss, so often they end up being there for comedic effect rather than making any serious points. Jason on the other hand was smart, funny, well spoken, and was clearly an intelligent choice for guest. He surprised me, not because I thought he was actually like the characters he’s played on sitcoms, but because he exceeded my expectations. Could be an interesting dinner guest.
The other reason it was a good episode was because generally the panel agreed with each other and if they didn’t, it didn’t break down into three people talking over each other like it so often does.
Entertaining and intelligent discussion, and it takes a bunch of Americans to do it right.
Dehydrated
I got a recipe for Coriander Chicken last week, complete with a fairly simple shopping list of all the things I needed. So of course I did the reasonable thing, and made sure to buy them all at the supermarket this week, all the stuff turning up on Wednesday.
Feeling like some cooking fun earlier in the evening, I decided tonight was the night I’d give it a go. I went to the fridge and guess what I found?
I forgot to buy chicken.
Every other single ingredient, from garlic to chillies to ginger to lemon grass. But no chicken.
I’ve really not been on the ball this week. My back has been sore for the first time in ages, I’ve been dehydrated, and now my lips have completely dried up and cracked, complete with blood on them when I wake up in the morning. It all adds up to somebody who has spent an inordinate amount of time passed out on the couch and sure is looking forward to the weekend so he can pull himself together again. I’ve been better.
Agitate
“You stupid worthless pack of food. How dare you just sit there and do nothing while I stand here being hungry? You think you’re so clever don’t you, with you’re plastic covering and black tray. But you’re not. You’re nothing. Look at yourself for just a second, do you think anybody is going to care when you’re gone? Do you think anyone is going to throw flowers into your grave? Nobody. Nobody.”
I may have went a bit overboard. The pack only said “agitate slightly”.
Dinner
Here’s one for you commenters, if you could dinner with any three people, living or dead, who would it be?
Receiver
My left mouse button has been broken for a couple of weeks, but I’ve been putting off buying a new one. Trying to control my spending and all that jazz. Today I bit the bullet and hit PC World up for a new one, simply because the lack of a proper left click last night was driving me crazy.
I looked at them all, I just wanted the same one again. I put ones back on the shelf that said wireless on them because I can’t be bothered with things that have replaceable batteries. Eventually, I found the same looking mouse as I have already. Bought and paid for, I thought it was quite expensive, but decided that was just the PCW premium.
Got it home, opened the box (well, ripped, due to the stupid plastic surround) and out dropped a mouse without a cable. Oh yea, and a receiver. I bought a wireless one.
How. the. hell?
I’m losing my mind. Really. Two days in a row.
Alarm
I often wake up before the alarm, usually a few minutes before. I’d say this was a highly developed sense of time where my body clock knew exactly what was going on, but if that were the case I probably wouldn’t wake up repeatedly throughout the night.
This morning I woke up and thought it was a bit odd that the alarm hadn’t gone off yet, so before rolling over I played the game of guess the time. 7:43 I decided (alarm is meant to go off at 7:45) and then I turned over.
8:15.
Standing in the shower at 8:16, I almost fell over. Don’t jump out of bed that quickly, it’s dangerous. Blood still hasn’t moved to where it should be.
Sheer
It’s four episodes in already, but the BBC series Planet Earth, Sunday nights at 9pm, is worth a watch. The best wildlife programmes are those that not only show you something you’ve never seen before, but also surprise you along the way. Some of the shots this show has come up with have been so huge and majestic that you can’t help but be impressed. The sheer scale of bird and animal migrations across the planet are an amazing thing to see.
Those outside the UK can probably find it through the usual sources. Not that I would endorse such a thing.
Nail
I have worshipped at the altar of Aaron Sorkin for a while now, thanks in large part to the wonder of the first four seasons of the West Wing, so I really should have checked out Sports Night before now.
It’s a difficult show to nail down, which is probably why it only lasted two seasons. It’s more drama than comedy, yet it’s got the format of a 22 minute single camera sitcom, complete with an entirely out of place laugh track on the early episodes (a laugh track that doesn’t think the show is funny). Great cast, great writing, fun continuing stories and yes, occasionally funny jokes. It’s much more throwaway than the West Wing is, it’s unlikely to grip you in quite the same way, but it’s still far more watchable than most of the dross out there.
One thing Graham realised was that while writing the second season of this, Sorkin was also writing the first season of WW. Two weekly television shows, of which he was writing almost every episode (I think he wrote 41 out of the 46 Sports Night episodes and 83 out of 90 WW episodes), which is frankly insane. Me, I achieved nothing today.
Horizon
Friday, Friday, Friday. The end of another week and as always, the joy of getting to lie in tomorrow is already seeping through. As always, there are plans to bring the world of bear further into the 21st century, but mostly putting my feet up and reading some more of Who Built the Moon? are the items on the horizon.
Recipe
Take two boneless and skinless chicken breasts and cut into strips. Put some oil in a frying pan and put on a medium heat, letting the pan become hot. Throw in the chicken and spend 4 minutes mixing it around, turning it and letting yourself get burnt by the oil. Then take a tin of tomatoes from your cupboard (you have lots of them, unused for months) and add about a quarter of the can into the frying pan. Keep on mixing, turning, letting the chicken turn golden, all for about another 3 minutes. Then look in your cupboard again and find another never used item, mixed Italian spices, contained within your upside down biscuit tin lid spice holder, and sprinkle some of that into the pan as well. Keep going with the mixing, turning and getting burnt for another minute or two, turn off the heat and serve.
The result? Nicely cooked chicken with a good tomato and herb sauce, plus the satisfaction that you made up a meal as you went along and it actually worked. The damage? Some tomato sauce up the wall, some light scarring and a frying pan, chopping board and wooden spoon to wash.
Beige
Windows booting on the new Intel Macs? Pretty impressive, I wouldn’t even know where to start installing an operating system on a machine that doesn’t have the BIOS it relies on. Quite funny that MS just announced the removal of EFI support in Vista (more feature cutting) while 2 guys in California can pull this off. They even did it with a sense of style too, with a boot selector even Jobs himself would approve of.
I think if this gets simple enough, and problems with graphics drivers can be sorted out, then it will sell a few more Macs. But in the long run, I don’t see it having much effect. The general populace is going to continue sticking with what they know, which is beige boxes running Microsoft operating systems, it’s an unfortunate fact of life that people do not like change.
Potatoes
I’m not sure I’ve actually slept all the way through the night for months now. I don’t usually have much problem drifting off, but staying in that state for longer than 7 hours seems to be an impossible goal. Throughout the night I just wake up repeatedly, and not down to any noticable source either, like being too hot or from some noise. So incredibly tired tonight, big black bags under my eyes, body in a state of exhaustion, not a pretty sight. Bed shortly.
I’ve been trying to eat more healthily, lots of bananas, no crisps, no cakes at lunchtime, I even cooked some chicken and boiled some potatoes tonight, small steps towards doing more proper cooking. I’ve still got a cupboard filled with dried pasta, spices and other ingredients I’ve never even touched.
Maybe one day they’ll get used.
Candidate
As hinted at a couple of weeks ago, here’s an Alertbear Release Candidate for you to try out if you are so inclined.
If all goes well, this will launch soon, along with the website that I completed the design of earlier tonight.
Being productive is nice.
Flakes
I was just about to go to bed at 2am this morning when I accidentally hit the button on the Mac that brings up Dashboard and the weather forecast. I was surprised to see that the outlook for the rest of the day was snow, especially considering Saturday was actually pretty nice. As I always do before heading off, I looked out the window, only to be confronted with this…
This afternoon I headed down the park and took some more photographs, throw some snowballs into the river and bemoan the lack of small children to throw them at too. It’s the first time I’ve been down the park since Fury went away, so that was a bit sad, especially when I met the woman from the dog walking service that I used to see every morning. I would have loved to have seen Fury’s reaction to the snow, I imagine she would have found it quite strange and couldn’t help but wish she was trotting along in front of me.
