« August 2004 | Main | October 2004 »

September 29, 2004

Tabbing and Emacs

To make tabbing work better in Emacs when other editors are being used as well, i.e. display 4 spaces for a tab character, insert spaces instead of tabs when you hit tab:

;; Turn off tabs
(setq indent-tabs-mode nil)
(setq-default indent-tabs-mode nil)

;; Set the tab width
(setq default-tab-width 4)
(setq tab-width 4)
(setq c-basic-indent 4)

Posted by Scott at 8:53 AM | Comments (0)

September 20, 2004

How to tell everyone what an idiot you are

Hit reply-to-all on an email that you have not read.

This email went out to (what I now know is) a large email alias about a migration of information. Apparently there are many people on the alias who do not know what to do about this information or why they are getting the email. So they replied. To everyone. So far over 100 have replied. To all.

And the kicker is, the email clearly says that this migration will happen automatically, and you probably do not need to do anything. If you do need to do anything, an email will be sent to you with details and instructions on exactly what to do.

At this point, the number of people replying to all, pleading with others to stop replying to all is running neck and neck with the number of people replying to all to say that they don't know why they got this email. if you don't get the irony, please stop reading my blog - you won't understand most of what I have to say.

I think that the best reply to all was a random recipe...

Posted by Scott at 2:06 PM | Comments (0)

September 18, 2004

WinAmp/DoSomething/MovableType --> Now Playing

This is pretty cool... Thanks to a post on A Whole Lotta Nothing, I now have an automatically updating "Now Playing" section!

(UPDATE) And since I almost never listen to music now, it is sitting idle and I have commented it out...

Posted by Scott at 6:28 PM | Comments (0)

September 14, 2004

So is it taking advantage, or not?

I heard another person bemoaning that fact that if we didn't have illegal immigrants around to pick produce, clean hotel rooms, landscape lawns, and any number of other menial jobs, that these things would not get done. Apparently, the lazy citizens of this country will never be willing to work for that little money, and the market will not bear the cost if even minimum wage was paid to do these jobs. But apparently it is OK to allow this to continue, because after all, it allows the illegal immigrants a means to make money to support themselves (and send money back to the motherland).

All I have to say in answer to the question of "Who would do X" is, "Someone, no one, or a machine." (In giving credit where credit is due, I believe I first heard this quote on "Armstrong and Getty", a radio talk show.)

Now for a different, but related, topic. Sweat shops, the bane of the earth, taking advantage of workers in under developed countries, making them work in substandard environments, paying them very little money, and not giving them the benefits (health insurance, time off, etc) that we expect in our country. Evidently this behavior by the money grubbing corporations of America must stop or else, or else...

Now lets compare the two situations. In both cases, the workers are paid substandard pay (compared to what can be made in America), have a substandard working environment (compared to working environments in America), and no benefits (compared to benefits in America). But here is the difference - the workers here have to live here, and the workers elsewhere have to live there. This may seem like stating the obvious, and yes it is, but I do so to make a point.

Working and living here in America, the illegal immigrants live in poverty, and I doubt that anyone would argue otherwise. But for the workers that work and live in under developed countries, many of the things that we consider substandard, are actually above standard for the place that they live. It does not really matter to them that their entire years wages might buy them a loaf of bread and a half gallon of milk here in America, because they do not live here, they live in a place where they are, many times, making more than anyone else in their community, and they can buy much more than a loaf of bread and half gallon of milk in their local market.

So can someone please explain to me why it is considered OK for them to continue living and working in poverty because if we do not the economy will apparently collapse, but we should stop corporations from giving people living in third world nations a better job, with better pay, than they could possibly get doing any of the (few) other jobs that are available to them? Is this really the end justifing the means? Is this, by any chance, yet another hypocrisy of the left?

Posted by Scott at 10:26 PM | Comments (1)

September 10, 2004

I love screen real estate

It is all about real estate... Another hundred bucks would go a long way toward increasing productivity. I would trade that for the CD-RW drive!

Seriously, 1024x768 is just not enough screen - you only get a dozen lines of code with the IDE around it. 1280x1024 is just enough to start with, but 1400x1050 or 1600x1200 is the sweet spot. I guess I am too much of a code junkie, but the extra lines of code go that extra mile towards making code crafting that much easier.

On the plus side, I should be able to land a good monitor - the one that is on my desk now is good except for the severe wobble on the top half (yes, only the top half) of the screen ;)

Posted by Scott at 6:34 PM | Comments (0)

September 9, 2004

The laptop has landed

And yet, no love :(

We had to open a support case to have a tech setup the laptop. Hopefully by next week?

Posted by Scott at 5:34 PM | Comments (0)

Teacher, may I be excused? My brain is full...

Wow - after a 2 hour conference call going over design and code, all on shared documents over a conference service, my brain needs some down time. Code review in VI is a little hard to follow, with the added benefit of delayed scrolling :(

Posted by Scott at 3:54 PM | Comments (0)

Day three

Well the laptop is here - oh wait, no, the port replicator, extra power cord, and lock are here. The laptop is still MIA.

The lunch cafe is very convinient - don't even need to leave the building, just walk downstairs. Decent prices for what you get too.

Posted by Scott at 1:49 PM | Comments (0)

September 8, 2004

Second day on the job

Well more of the sites are available today, and after I put in a trouble ticket, the New Hire Orientation was available. Pretty informative - and I got over 80% on the exit exam :) Also finished the health benefits section - easiest that I have ever done - having it all online is great - no paperwork. Finished all the documentation and filled out my first PTO request - hope they let me go negative...

Still no laptop - that should be here tomorrow...

Posted by Scott at 5:36 PM | Comments (0)

September 7, 2004

First day at Cisco

Overall, a pretty good first day, all things considered.

Lots of documentation to read - PRD and specifications. Not all the passwords have propagated yet, so I cannot login to all the sites, but read alot of orientation materials. They do not have a laptop for me yet, so I am using my own for now. That should get here Thursday - but hey, I have a good monitor when the laptop does get here ;)

Went out after lunch with some of the remote people from the group, so I guess it was a good week to join.

Posted by Scott at 7:30 PM | Comments (0)