Once a Coder…

I realised something about myself the other day. OK, I re-realised something about myself, when I had the opportunity to sit down and just code again.

I’m a programmer, and I love coding. I’ve known since early Primary School that it’s all I wanted to do. To me, coding is art, and it’s an end unto itself. I’ll write a couple hundred lines of code, and spend the next several months to several years optimising it, reducing it, making it look pretty. It’s often irrelevant whether the code I’ve just written actually works (although it’d be nice if it at least compiles), let alone whether the resulting program serves its stated business purpose. I guess this explains why I have no many unfinished projects lying around on my home PC, servers and backup discs.

Yes, the code is elegant, efficient, beautiful. I guess it’s somewhat like a painter, sculptor, or author. Whether somebody buys or uses your product makes no difference to the joy you obtain from producing it.

Naturally, this view of what I do for a living doesn’t help so much when it comes to the necessity of making money… but at least I’ve got a pretty good idea of what I’d probably spend my time on if I ever didn’t have to work for a living, hey?

Take time to read - Thank you for educational e-mails in 2010

I get this kind of e-mail every year, and every year it makes me laugh. I thought I'd blog it this year.

As we progress through the year 2010, I want to thank all of you for your educational e-mails over the past year. I am totally screwed up now and have little chance of recovery.

I no longer open a bathroom door without using a paper towel, or have the waitress put lemon slices in my ice water without worrying about the bacteria on the lemon peel.

I can't sit down on the hotel bedspread because I can only imagine what has happened on it since it was last washed.

I have trouble shaking hands with someone who has been driving because the number one pastime while driving alone is picking one's nose.

Eating a little snack sends me on a guilt trip because I can only imagine how many gallons of trans fats I have consumed over the years.

I can't touch any woman's purse for fear she has placed it on the floor of a public restroom.

I MUST SEND MY SPECIAL THANKS to whoever sent me the one about rat poop in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet sponge with every envelope that needs sealing.

ALSO, now I have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown) who is about to die for the 1,387,258th time.

I no longer have any money, but that will change once I receive the R15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program.

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa's Novena has granted my every wish.

I can't have a drink in a bar because I'll wake up in a bathtub full of ice with my kidneys gone.

I can't eat at KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes, feet or feathers.

I can't use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

THANKS TO YOU I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

BECAUSE OF YOUR CONCERN, I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains.

I no longer buy petrol without taking someone along to watch the car so a serial killer doesn't crawl in my back seat when I'm filling up or in the garage shop

I no longer use Cling Wrap in the microwave because it causes seven different types of cancer.

AND THANKS FOR LETTING ME KNOW I can't boil a cup of water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face. Disfiguring me for life.

I no longer go to the movies because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS when I sit down.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me.

And I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica , Nigeria, Uganda , Singapore , and Uzbekistan ..

I no longer buy cookies from Woolies since I now have their recipe.

THANKS TO YOU I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big black snake could be lurking under the seat and cause me instant death when it bites my butt.

AND THANKS TO YOUR GREAT ADVICE I can't ever pick up R2.00 coin dropped in the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting to grab me as I bend over.

I can't do any gardening because I'm afraid I'll get bitten by the Violin Spider and my hand will fall off.

If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 p.m. tomorrow afternoon, and the fleas from 120 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's best friend's beautician …

Oh, by the way.....

A German scientist from Argentina , after a lengthy study, has discovered that people with insufficient brain activity read their e-mail with their hand on the mouse.

Don't bother taking it off now, it's too late.

P.S.: I now keep my toothbrush in the living room, because I was told by e-mail that water splashes over 3m out of the toilet.

NOW YOU ALL HAVE YOURSELVES A VERY GOOD DAY…AND A HEALTHY LIFE!!!

National Lottery Scraper can send to Gmail addresses again

This is an update to my post last week: Gmail blocks my mail as Spam.

I figured it out, and changed the application accordingly. These are the changes I made:

• The e-mail sent out now clearly indicates in the body the address of the person it was sent to.
• The e-mail body states that recipients should e-mail me to unsubscribe.
• Added "List-Unsubscribe " to the header of the message.
• Added "Precedence: bulk" header in the e-mail.

It seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through for a simple little app like mine, but I guess the spammers ruin it for all of us, don't they?

You can download the application from here, or view the change log here.

Gmail blocks my mail as Spam

So Gmail as decided to block e-mails sent by National Lottery Scraper as spam (send from me, to me). It's not even as if they just move the mail into my spam folder. No, their server actually blocks it! Here's what my mail log said about it this morning:

9D4FD5EB2C: to=<graham@***********.**.***>, relay=ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM[74.125.79.27]:25, delay=14, delays=0.17/0.22/11/2.4, dsn=5.7.1, status=bounced (host ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM[74.125.79.27] said:
550-5.7.1 [***.***.***.*** 7] Our system has detected that this message is
550-5.7.1 likely unsolicited mail. To reduce the amount of spam sent to Gmail,
550-5.7.1 this message has been blocked. Please visit
550-5.7.1 http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=188131 for
550 5.7.1 more information. v45si7647979eeh.40 (in reply to end of DATA command))

The information at the URL they give gives me basically buggerall recourse. Or am I reading this wrong? Does anybody know how to get around this?

The House of Ribs Boksburg: Impressions

So my wife and I were looking for a place to go for lunch today. Some place we'd never been before. We trolled the Internet for about an hour, and came across a place called The House of Ribs in Boksburg.

Looking through the menu, the prices didn't look too bad. Not Spur, but we were looking for something other than Spur anyway. The only thing was that the website didn't specify that they had a smoking section, so my wife phoned to ask them. They did. We booked.

It's a delightful place, with a children's play area, and a red carpet rolls out to greet you. The interior of the place was pretty dark, and with my night-blindness I held onto my wife as she guided me to the smoking section. The smoking section is really bright! Plate glass windows all around, for a perfect atmosphere in the middle of the day (I think that too might be a little dark at night, though, as there are only down-lights embedded in the ceiling, and a few wall lights here and there). It's very close to the airport, and so we lost count of the number of planes we spotted coming in for landing, so low it felt like we could reach out and touch them! My wife and I had endless fun trying to identify airliners by the colours on their tail fins.

We were served by a pleasant man called Cleo (I'm not sure if I'm spelling that right). He was very professional--there when you needed him, but unseen when you didn't. My biggest pet-peeve are waiters who are in your face every five minutes asking if everything's alright, specially while you're eating. If I have a problem, I'll call you, dammit!

The food wasn't bad. I'm pretty sure that "The House of Ribs" is supposed to be known for their ribs, but we weren't in the mood. We each had a 500g rump and chips. We asked for our steaks "well done". To be honest, I've grown accustomed to food coming more "medium-well" than "well-done" when I ask for "well-done", but these chefs know what "well-done" means (Here's a clue: it does not mean "burnt")! I was pleasantly surprised. The sauce was unique; my wife said it was the rosemary. I can't remember ever having rosemary before. It was a nice change, but it thankfully ended before it got too much. The spices on the chips were very nice. Not too spicy at all (I don't like spicy food).

Cheesecake for desert. It was served in a sundae glass, which I found quite strange. The highlight was the fresh cherry (with stem) it was topped with, and the cream on the top was very nice. The cheesecake itself was quite bland, but I don't think this place is really revered for its desserts anyway.

The bill came, and I was quite happy to give Cleo his full 10%... except that only after I wrote my tip amount onto the bill did I notice that they had already included a 10% "service charge". For two people?! OK, but it's not Cleo's fault, and I'd already settled on the amount I was going to give him anyway, so it wasn't like I was losing money.

The bottom line? A pretty decent place, prices a bit over average (for what we're used to anyway), and interesting food. I think we'll be going there again!

Running full screen games under Wine, with Visual Effects enabled

I've recently began playing around with Ubuntu Linux (I'm using 10.04, or "Lucid Lynx"), and so I'm dual-booting between Windows and Ubuntu.

I have some games that I'd like to play under Linux. For that reason, and as a proof of concept, I installed Wine. The game I tested was Zuma Deluxe. It ran beautifully! Then one day, it stopped working. When I ran it, the "Zuma Deluxe" icon appeared in the taskbar, and the screen resolution changed, but all I could see was the Ubuntu desktop. If I went into the Wine configuration, and set "Emulate a virtual desktop" on, it worked again, but in a window on my desktop, not in full screen mode.

It turned out that I had enabled the "Visual Effects" in Ubuntu (Settings -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Visual Effects). When I disabled those, I could play Zuma again, without emulating a virtual desktop. But I like Visual Effects, and I also like Zuma in full screen!

I've just discovered a setting in Wine that works. Go to "Configure Wine" (Applications -> Wine -> Configure Wine). Go to the "Graphics" tab, and uncheck the options to allow the window manager to control and decorate the windows. Zuma is now working, in full screen, with Visual Effects enabled again!

Checking Traffic Reports on Twitter

Awhile back, I began noticing many of the people I follow on Twitter, tweeting traffic problems, and using the hashtag #jhbtraffic. I thought it was pretty interesting, so I went onto Twitter and a did a search for #jhbtraffic. I found there were loads of people tweeting with that hashtag. So what I’ve now done is to create a saved search for #jhbtraffic, and I check it regularly. I’ve also begun tweeting my own traffic problems using that hashtag.

The problem is, when using Twitter from your cellphone, that their mobile website doesn’t include a place where you can view your saved searches (or search for anything in general). So you need a decent Twitter client for your phone that supports this feature. If you’re on Windows Mobile, check out PockeTwit—it supports saved searches through what it calls “groups.” On the desktop, I use TweetDeck, which is a really amazing client that also supports saved searches. I hear there’s an iPhone version of TweetDeck as well, but I can’t speak to what it can do.

It is unfortunate, though, that Twitter (or any client I’ve seen so far) doesn’t support the ability to filter out certain hashtags from your timeline. I’m sure I really irritate those of my followers not in Johannesburg sometimes! It would be nice if they could elect to not show tweets from me with the tag #jhbtraffic. Perhaps we should suggest that as a feature to Twitter?

I’m sure there are hashtags for every other metropolitan area in South Africa (and probably other countries too). I would highly recommend taking a look!

LiveJournal Tags: Twitter,Traffic,PockeTwit,TweetDeck

Windows 7 At Last

It is with a bitter sweet sensation that I announce that I have finally moved over from Windows Vista SP2, to Windows 7 on my work notebook.

Oh, the new task bar is amazing! It’s so much faster than Vista was on this machine (possibly faster even than XP would’ve been). User Access Control is still around, but far less intrusive. And, deep zoom is out of this world cool (am using it right now—beats pressing my face into the monitor to see what’s going on!

But I forgot to back up my e-mail archives! I even had a checklist of items to back up on Friday, and I went through the list carefully ticking each item… and “E-mail Archives” was on the list! Three years of e-mails, gone! I mean, the very first e-mail my boss sent me on my first day at the company, asking for my income tax number, and every e-mail (except those sent/received less than one month ago, which are still on the server) sent or received since. I felt sick!

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Windows 7,Windows Vista,Windows XP,E-Mail

My Nearly Impossible Task for Today

So the celebrity Survivor South Africa finished last night, with a live finale show where the winner was announced… and I didn’t watch it. We don’t get M-Net (the channel that broadcasts Survivor South Africa), so I ask my mom to record it to DVD for us every week. We’ve been watching religiously, and I don’t want to know who won last night before I’ve seen it for myself.

It’s arrived at a showdown between Ashley Hayden, an aging (by which I of course mean around 40—this is show business, after all!) television presenter, and Gigi, an exotic dancer and owner of the Lollipop Lounge, the most well known strip club in South Africa. I’m hoping that Gigi will win, because I’m not happy with the way Ashley conducted herself during the show. Still, there’s much ado about this one, and it could turn out to be a very interesting finale!

So for today, I am not listening to the radio. I’m staying away from Twitter and Facebook, and I’m definitely not going anywhere near any South African news websites! And please, can everybody resist the urge to comment on this blog post and tell me who won (since I will not be able to stay away from my e-mail)?

Do you think I’ll make it through to tonight without finding out?

 

P.S. My normal practice would have been to go and find links for Survivor South Africa, Ashley Hayden, Gigi, and Lollipop Lounge. I’m not going to do that, because any pages I find might have information on them that I don’t want to see right now. You’ve gots-ta get up real early in the morning to catch ol’ Yogi Bear!

BuzzNet Tags: Survivor SA,M-Net,Ashley Hayden,Gigi,Lollipop Lounge

Hello Google (Windows Live Spaces sucks)

I used to have a blog on Windows Live Spaces, and I used to have my Facebook Notes automatically pull new posts from my blog into my profile. For the first time in a few months, I added a blog entry yesterday. Knowing that it can take a couple of hours for the post to propagate to Facebook, I waited, and waited, and waited. Since I had also shared my new blog post through my Twitter account, I decided to click on the link I had posted to the Permalink of my blog entry. Lo and behold, I got redirected to the Windows Live login screen!

What?! Are they serious?

I don’t want people to have to have a Windows Live account in order to see my blog posts (besides, Facebook can’t access the feed from my blog anymore). So I guess that means, “Goodbye Live Spaces, hello Blogger!”

BuzzNet Tags: Windows Live,Google,Microsoft,Blogger,Blogspot