This did.
Apr 26 2007
The imminent return
Emma’s comes back on Saturday.
Tonight has seen the start of Operation Clean and Tidy which has had me cleaning the kitchen, hoovering throughout, tidying various paper work away and will shortly see me ironing.
I wonder if she’ll notice :)
Apr 25 2007
Another quarter goes by.
I had my quarterly review on Monday evening.
The company has changed the review process considerably from last year to reduce the amount of time it takes both in terms of filling in the self assessment and the actual meeting itself.
Due to my manager being in Austin, the review was done over the phone when I arrived home, so it made for a fairly long day.
It went well, everyone’s happy with the work I’m doing and the contributions I’m making to the team. I was given a personal performance figure of 110%, which is excellent.
I was told there’s an opening in Austin that I could take, if I so desire (it seems they really did take note of my desire to work abroad), but as it’s an immediate requirement I’m not in a position to take it. I’m still holding out for Singapore in 2008 though :)
My goals for the next quarter should be interesting to work on. I’ll be working on the alerting platform for the next generation trading system which, as well as alerting to problems (or possible problems), will do a lot of the trouble shooting – extracting various bits of information required by the Ops for speedy resolution of the problem.
I’m definitely looking forward to being busier; a fair bit of the last 5 months has been me chasing around for work.
Apr 22 2007
The sound of a pin dropping.
It’s been 30 hours since Emma departed for sunnier climes (well, Exeter) and I’m really feeling it.
I’ve been keeping myself as busy as possible, the house is clean, the plants are watered, clothes have been washed and dried and so has the sofa.
Today, having enjoyed a lay-in until 0930, I worked until nearly 4pm on Zachary’s bedroom which is now almost ready to have lining paper hung on the walls. I only need to finish sanding the latest of the filler and then size the walls before I’m good to go on that front. Between that and now I’ve squeezed in a little contract work, responding to various emails, doing a few odd jobs which have been on a back burner. Tomorrow the remainder of project Credit Card will be commenced; not a something I relish.
But something doesn’t feel right, it’s not the same here without Emma and Zachary. I’m missing them more than I expected to. Even though we don’t talk constantly when we’re both here, just the presence of Emma has a noticeable positive effect on my mood.
As for Zachary, well, I spoke to him on the phone today; he’s been chasing chickens. I wish I was chasing chickens with him.
Apr 19 2007
Firefox extensions
I make frequent use of various Firefox extensions to either improve my browsing experience, make development easier, or even to bypass any proxies which may sit between my desktop computer and the default gateway. The ones I have installed currently are:
- Better GMail – Gmail + Greasemonkey == Gmail on steriods.
- Cooliris Previews – Preview target links without navigating away from the page you’re on.
- Download Statusbar – Get rid of the downloads window, and have the displayed in your status bar.
- DownThemAll – Download manager for firefox. Supports resume, chunked downloading etc.
- Firefox Showcase – Implementation of the IE feature of viewing thumbnails of all your tabs.
- GMail Notifier – Alerts if you have any new Gmail in your inbox.
- Google Browser Sync – Syncronise bookmarks, cookies, passwords etc between browsers, using your google account.
- Greasemonkey – User script manager. Add custom javascript to web pages (needed for ‘Better GMail’, above).
- Live HTTP Headers – View the headers of your HTTP requests in real time.
- Password Exporter – Export your passwords in XML to import them into another firefox instance. Useful if you don’t want Google Browser Sync installed.
- Switch Proxy Tool – Switch between HTTP proxies with a couple of clicks.
- Add N Edit Cookies – Does what it says on the tin.
- Open Long URLs – Open URLs that span multiple lines.
- Open Download – Run an executable file without saving it first.
Are there any which you use that I may find useful?
Edit: These have been suggested, I can’t believe I forgot AdBlock myself:
- BugMeNot – Use others’ login details for websites.
- AdBlock Plus – Block annoying adverts.
- AdBlock FilterSet G. Updater – Automatically download updated filtersets for AdBlock.
- Linky – Open text links into new tabs / windows without having to cut/paste.
- del.icio.us bookmarks – Integration of del.icio.us bookmarks.
- User Agent Switcher – for those websites who want you to be someone you’re not.
Apr 18 2007
Good bye, Orange.
It’s been a relatively happy 7 years, but the time’s finally come where I want to say good-bye to Orange.
My contract expired at the end of March and I was holding out for the Nokia N95 to be released which, a couple of weeks ago, it duly was.
I spoke with Orange Retentions department and threatened to leave unless they stopped ripping me off (they’ve been charging £35/month for 200 mins). They offered me the N95 for £15, and dropped the price of the £25/month contract down to £15. Quite a good deal. The clinch came with their data offering.
According to various places on the web, Orange will, if pressed, offer ‘unlimited’ data for £8/month. I called, pushed, cited T-Mobile’s £7.50/month deal, and they still denied the package was available. If I want a proper data contract, I need to pay £80/month. To put it bluntly, f•ck that.
So this afternoon I signed up with T-Mobile. I’ve ordered a Nokia E61 on the Flext 25 tarrif and have added the ‘unlimited’ data package. I’ll be porting my mobile number over in the next few weeks, and Emma will be switching in May. Happy days.
Apr 18 2007
T-minus 4 days…
In 4 days, Emma and Zachary are going to visit her Dad in Exeter leaving me to fend for myself at home.
I decided not to go with her as I only get 4.3 weeks holiday, and we’ve already booked one and are planning two further holidays of around a week each before year end. Despite it being my choice, it’s not going to make me miss them any less. I get lonely when they’re not around :(
Looking at the positive aspects of the time alone, I’ll be able to concentrate on my contract work without feeling guilty that I’m neglecting family responsibilities and hopefully I’ll be able to make headway into lining Zachary’s bedroom walls in preparation for painting – it’ll be good to finally mark that project as complete and move him in there.
Apr 16 2007
Little bundles of joy.
Zachary takes such delight in telling us things. The frequent heard shout of, ‘oh DUDE! bum.’ gives me mixed feelings. I find it funny because it’s so cute (the ‘oh dude’ part came from my exclaimation when I’d be changing his nappy and it was a bad one), but I also get a feeling of dread because Emma’s then taught him to say, ‘Daddy bum’, which apparently is him wanting me to change it.
It’s not all fun and joy though; he’s been lashing out a lot recently when he’s been frustrated and it’s directed at us (ie, he’s trying to hit us). Beyond telling him, ‘NO!’, and then asking him to say sorry and then give us a cuddle (with or without him having a couple of minutes of timeout in the playpen), I don’t know what we can do.
He’s not at an age where we can reason with him but that doesn’t make is any less upsetting for us.
Apr 04 2007
A little bit of everything
The last few weeks have been quite fun. I’ve had some time for geeking, playing with Zachary, taking a deeper look into my finances and also doing some consultancy work.