Author Archive for Bobby
Wow, two months since the last update. I had a whole heap of plans of stuff I was going to do with the site but haven’t been able to implement them.
Anyway a few small updates to roll into one.
I quit my job
Yep, somehow I managed to last only 1 and a half years at this current place. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t like the job and the people were OK it just got a little too overwhelming especially when you have to deal with the same bullshit everyday.
So I’m picking up contract work again while looking for work. It’s great not having to work a 9-5er.
I’m finishing my degree
Protip for those who think that finishing a degree part time is a good idea. Take the 3 years, do it full time, work hard at it and get it out of the way. I’ve taken on “summer” units to complete this life goal and should have it done by December. I’ll be graduating in June 2009, 4 years after I started the degree.
Become a photo junkie
Now that I have a heap of free time on my hands, I’ve decided to learn more about how to use my camera and take good photos. I’m a bit short on storage on my hosting account so will most likely reactivate my flickr account and upload them there.
Learning how to write iPhone applications
I was given an opportunity to take on some work and build an iPhone-compatible site for a project. Good thing is the system is web based so I don’t have to learn any new programming skills but on the side I’m learning how to build iPhone applications.
I’ve decided to put some time aside to making some improvements to this site. The main one is the installation of Mint, a commercial site statistics tool which completes ASIO’s takeover of the site.
Keep a lookout for some more tangible improvements over the next week or two.
Before heading into work i normally check the Connex web site to see if there are any disruptions just in case I need to change my travel plans.
If you look at the table above, you’ll notice that the 8:27am Cragieburn train is listed as “will now run” and then listed again “has been cancelled“.
At first I thought that this meant that the was cancelled then would run (ie: updates ordered by time) but that didn’t make sense judging by the rest of the updates. That would have meant my train would be running. After a bit more guesswork, I deduced that they had ordered the status updates by Line and then Service’ which would have meant my train was cancelled.
By that point I realised all this thinking about it too much and gave up.
It makes you wonder about the type of meeting they had to discuss the overall functionality of this page. I’m sure the question “how can we make this page as unusable as possible?” was raised a few times.
If I was working for the company that developed the site, Platform Interactive, I’d be embarrased to put my name on this poorly thoughout piece of functionality.
Today was my last day in Sydney, I decided to round up the day and the trip with a short trip around the city before I had to head to the airport and back home.
Star City (Again)
I took advantage of a free few hours to learn how to play Baccarat. Add it to the list of things to do when I get back to Melbourne.
Day three was a little less action packed. I decided to take a ferry to Mosman and check out Taronga Zoo. The ferries are a relatively cheap and easy way to get from one part of the harbor to another. Taronga Zoo itself is built on the side of a hill so essentially you start at the top and work your way down.
Taronga Zoo
The elephants had the biggest enclosure. For a brief moment it seemed like we wouldn’t see them but the keepers brought them out for a quick bite to eat.
One of the biggest mistakes that I made was not employing guest writers while I was on holidays. So you’ll still have to put up with me for a little while longer (at least). Here is a summary of the events that took place today.
Circular Quay
For all intents and purposes, Circular Quay could be described as what the Docklands should have been: a mixture of old and new buildings, apartments, entertainment and transportation facilities. From here you have a perfect view of the Sydney Harbor Bridge, access to the Opera House and ferries.
More Soon…
Since being blessed with the honor of being the Geek and Village Idiot of the family, I occasionally put the skills i have obtained to use with varying degrees of success. This afternoon it was decided that the Linux server was to receive an upgrade, format and rebuild. To that extent the new Linux server is something like this:
- Intel Pentium 4 2.8ghz
- 1.5 GB DDR Ram
- 40GB Hard Drive (For Operating System)
- 2 x 500GB Hard Drive (Mirrored RAID for Shares and Backup)
- DVD Writer
- PHP 5 / Apache 2
- FTP
- SVN Server
- Samba / SMB Server (Windows File Sharing)
- Netatalk / AFP (Mac File Sharing)
- Webmin
Some Common fallacies of logic and rhetoric are:
Ad hominem - attacking the arguer and not the argument.
Argument from “authority”.
Appeal to ignorance (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence).
See! I was right all along!