Bah, humbug

If I ruled the World, we'd have Christmas every other year. Last year, I was really good about buying presents. I bought things throughout the year, putting real thought, effort, and expense into choosing presents that I hoped would delight the recipients. It really gave me a lot of pleasure to hand over some well-chosen gifts.

This year, we're having Christmas in Italy, so I'm restricted to taking only a handful of small presents. I've had a busy year, and Christmas hasn't really featured on my radar at all. The presents I've bought have been last-minute choices, with little thought, and frankly I'm irritated that the whole gluttonous shebang has come round so quickly. I can't raise much interest to be honest. I'm looking forward to spending Christmas abroad with friends and family - that'll be a novelty - but apart from that, it seems like a soul-less convention, devoid of meaning. Once you're old enough to start receiving socks instead of Scalextric, and sceptical enough to skirt round any religious attachments, conscientious enough to be a vegetarian, and grumpy enough to refuse to watch TV, one has to focus on what's left - spending quality time with people you don't see as often as you'd like. Chuck in a few drinks and hopefully it'll be quite pleasant :)

In our family, those ethical "goat-style" presents were poorly received - I only found out why when I got one recently. There's no sense of attachment to the animal, or the community which benefits from your donation, and if you read the small print on the back, you'll see that your money probably hasn't bought a goat, but has been spent on goat-related accessories, or even more likely, has just been added to a generic slush-fund for the charity. You may as well just make a donation privately, and avoid the whole embarrassment of handing over a card with a picture of a goat on it.

Happy Christmas anyway - however you're celebrating, I hope you enjoy it.

An Epic saga...

I'm three weeks into my new job at Greenhouse, and all is going well. I've finally got some programming to do, in the form of a small report submissions tool for the DFES. It's good to be doing useful work again, after an initial 6 days of Research & Development into tools and methodologies for Greenhouse, I was starting to feel like I wanted to do something useful! It's been an odd few weeks, after a gentle wind-down at Epic, then a gentle easing-in period at Greenhouse, I really feel like I'm ready to do some hardcore coding.

My R&D work has been useful on a number of counts, because we now have two working SubVersion servers, I've upgraded the RAM in the main development server, the whole team are up to speed with SCRUM, we're evaulating Google Calendar, and we've got a working installation of Liberum (an open-source issue tracking system). We're planning to use SCRUM from next week onwards, and I must remember to buy a large pin-board for our task cards :)

It came as no surprise (to me anyway) to hear that my former employer, Epic, have laid off 12 members of staff, in a cost-cutting exercise. It's been a very poor year for Epic financially, and they've been leaking senior staff at an alarming rate. Surprisingly, the 12 people chosen for the axe, were all senior members of staff - some with over 10 years' service - which suggests the move was as much about reducing the wage bill, as it was about reducing numbers, to make the company a more attractive prospect for potential buyers. With a pay freeze in place for the next year, it's likely that they will continue to lose staff, and will eventually end up with the majority of their staff being under the age of 30 - or even more likely, under the age of 25. Epic are a good company to work for if you're starting a career in I.T. but once you get to a certain level of competence, you're bashing your head against the ceiling. The support structures and incentives simply aren't there to make a long-term career worthwhile, so my advice to any current employees reading this, is to stay for two or three years, then move on to somewhere more forward-thinking and nurturing.
The downside for Epic, of course, is that junior staff will have a long lead-in period, during which the quality of their work generally won't match that of the senior staff who have left. This was already feeding through to clients when I left, with rising numbers of software bugs and client complaints. However, there is a large and well-paid management team at Epic, and it's something for them to 'manage'. I wish them luck :)

Source control with Subversion

After eight years of using the much maligned Microsoft SourceSafe, I've been investigating the allegedly superior open-source "Subversion" alternative. I'd spent many hours wading through the user-unfriendly, *nix-based documentation on the Subversion site, and had got nowhere after downloading several vendor-specific flavours of this supposedly fantastic software.

Massive respect, then, to Chris McGlothen, who has posted this fantastic article on setting up Subversion on Windows 2003. Thanks to Chris's article, I've got a working Subversion server, nicely integrated with my desktop PC courtesy of the Tortoise SVN client. If only all user manuals could be so well written! The only caveat is step 6 - uninstalling the SVN service - I'm really not sure why he put that step in, as you need the service in order to make use of the software!

The Tyranny of "stuff"

I don't know about you, but I'm convinced that life used to be simpler. Right now, I'm pushed for time - I'm getting up early, working at my new job (which is great - Greenhouse really have lived up to expectations), getting home in the dark, going out most evenings (not many all-night raves or lock-ins these days)... repeat til bored. That'll take a while.

The bits in-between this routine, are spent tinkering with the random "stuff" that I've managed to acquire through being alive, and having enough money to pay for them.

What am I talking about? Pretty much anything you can buy in a shop:

- Computers: they're always going wrong. Then they wear out. Then you have to buy or build a new one, and figure out a way of getting all your data and software onto it. Then configure it, go "oooooh" at how fast it is, then spend time thinking about what to use it for.

- Hi-fi: They need cleaning, they need extended warranties, vibration-proof racks, cable tidies, upgrades, gold-plated cables. Didn't it all used to come in one box?

- Mobile phones: ringtones, downloads, upgrades, special offers, battery chargers, carry cases, fiddling around mis-typing text messages, worrying if you're out of range, wondering if you can hear the damn thing ringing in your winter coat.

- Kitchens: extended warranties on the oven, hob, fridge, freezer, toaster, microwave and kettle? Non, merci.

- Cars: time to get it serviced AGAIN? Has that tax disc gone up since last year? The AA are charging WHAT?? Is my fuel consumption okay? Will it start in this cold weather? Which garage is selling petrol for under £1?

- Websites: I'll just check my email. And the other email. And my Gmail. And Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, the forums, the BBC site, my Flickr feed, and some other thing I've forgotten the username and password for.

And finally, there's Christmas: planning for all of the above, only for other people. *Cue evil grin.*
I could go on, but you see what I'm getting at? We're slaves to our material possessions. I'm starting to wish I lived in a cave, with just a fire and a spear for company. But no doubt someone would try to sell me insurance and a 3-year extended warranty.

So, excuse me if I'm a little late in replying to your emails (I had 55 in my inbox yesterday), but I'm busy with *stuff*. I'll let you know when it's all taken care of!

Pete.

My last week at Epic

Ever since handing my notice in nearly 4 weeks ago, coming into work has been a frankly odd experience. People think twice before assigning me a task, I don't get invited to meetings, I'm "out of the loop" on any customer issues. Some clients have been informed of my impending departure, others won't be informed for a couple of months, to avoid any contractual concerns. I've found myself with plenty of free time, which I hate. I come to work to be busy, at home I've got 101 things to do every evening, so I loathe the prospect of twiddling my thumbs during the few hours of daylight that we get.

I have next week off, between jobs, and the time shouldn't hang heavy on my hands. My to-do list reads something like:

- Move into my flat
- Get the boiler working
- Repaint the woodwork outside and mow the lawn
- Buy a sofa, dining table, TV, and chairs
- Buy the other odds and ends that I'll need
- Get the phone and broadband set up
- Build my new PC from the bits that arrived last week (and I still haven't unwrapped)
- Play the "Orange Box" Half-life set
- Play 5 games of bowls
- Have a day in London
- Brush up on CSS and Mach II
- Have lunch with various people in Brighton
- Relax (?)

If I get half of those things done, I'll be happy!

Hammering it in, old-skool style

I've signed up to a "basics of DIY" course, in an attempt to learn some new skills that might be of use in the immediate future. Having spent a few thousand pounds renovating my flat this year, I've wondered how much I could have saved if I'd been able to do some of the work myself. I'm no slouch with a paint brush, but I'm out of my depth with the more practical aspects - such as plastering, coving, making wooden box housings, building kitchen units, etc. The nice part of DIY is being able to stand back and admire your work, assuming that you've done the job well. The bad part is spending time and money on a botched job, that you have to pay a professional to re-do.

With these things in mind, I attended the first class last night, held at my old secondary school. Our tutor, James Hatter, clearly knows his stuff, and is keen to get on and impart his knowledge to us. With only six of us in the group it would be nice to have some introductions - maybe a brief chat about why we're there, and what we're hoping to achieve - but no, it was straight in, listening to him for 2 hours. I took copious notes, and learned a lot. He went through all the tools that you're likely to need when doing DIY tasks (hammers, drills, saws, etc.), and handed round samples of each, explained how to use them properly, what to buy, where to buy them, what safety precautions to take, etc.
I was amazed at how much I didn't know: a hand-saw, for example, cuts down-wards, assuming that it's not a "pull saw", which cuts when pulling back on the handle. Fifteen "teeth per inch" (TPI) is considered to give a fairly fine cut. For cutting "with the grain" on large pieces of wood, a "rip saw" is recommended. The width of the cutting blade (anything up to 3mm) is known as the "kerf". The choice of saw will be governed by the hardness of the wood: pine is soft, and will require a fine cutting edge, whereas oak or ash is hard, and will need something more resilient.

It's nice to be learning from an expert - I just hope that my first DIY creation (which will probably be a set of shelves) lives up to his (and my) expectations.

It's Halloween tomorrow... where did I put my spirit level...?

The Joys of CF_ACCELERATE

I just stumbled upon a fantastic little tag by Brandon Purcell, called cf_accelerate. Basically, it's a memory-based custom tag, which is reckoned to be 50x faster than CFCACHE. I just tried it out on the development version our statistics-heavy TQi website, and the difference in load speeds is quite dramatic, down in most cases from around 10 seconds to less than 2 seconds. We were using CFCACHE, but cf_accelerate just blows it out of the water. With RAM prices so cheap, this is a hugely cost-effective way of speeding up your sites. If only we'd found this earlier! The TQi site is shortly being replaced with a new all-singing, all-dancing Unistats site. Ho hum...

Read all about the tag here:
http://www.bpurcell.org/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=963

To install it, just copy it to your ColdFusion custom tags directory. If you're on JRun, this will be buried somewhere in your jrun/servers/cfusion.ear/cfusion.war/web-inf/cfusion/ node. Have a look in the ColdFusion administrator, under the "custom tags" section, and it will tell you the default path. Once you've done that, just wrap your code in a <cf_accelerate> tag, and hey presto! The only caveat I've found so far is that any CFFLUSH tags won't work, as they're now wrapped within a call to a custom tag, so just comment these out.

Windows Search ripped my flesh!

Well, maybe not literally. When I booted up this morning, my first thought was "eugh - where did that come from?!", as I spotted the little Windows Search box embedded in the taskbar. It wasn't there yesterday... maybe it came through with the Adobe Reader update last night? No... must have been some random fascist in the I.T. department?

Sadly not - a quick visit to The Register shows that thousands of users across the land have had this "upgrade" thrust upon them, and are now suffering massive slow-down. Irate sys admins are running around trying to uninstall said update, which from a quick look, doesn't do anything too useful.

To get rid of this fine example of bloatware, follow these steps:

1. Right-click on your Taskbar. Select Toolbars --> click once on "Windows Search Deskbar".
2. Open Control Panel --> Administrative tools - Services
3. Scroll down to Windows Search, double-click it.
   
4. Set the startup type to Manual, then stop the service.
5. Close the Control Panel.
   
6. Breathe a sigh of relief.

Oddly, the main complaint from users is that it makes their computers slow down. Having spent the princely sum of £380 on new PC components last night, I'm wondering why anyone should have a slow computer in this day and age. That small sum of money has bought me a top-of-the-range Intel Core Duo processor, with a 4mb (yes - 4mb!!!) level 2 cache, a whopping 2 Gigabytes of RAM, a rock-solid motherboard, 250GB of fast SATA hard disk space, and a pretty nifty graphics card. Plus a few other odds and ends.

I might leave my Desktop Searchbar enabled as a mark of smugness... :)

Form is temporary, class is permanent...

I was involved in a highly frustrating game of bowls last night. Nothing too important, just an evening league with some friends. However, for some reason, my form totally deserted me. I had no rapport with the green, and each shot looked impossible as I stood on the mat. In my mind I knew what line and length to take... but for some reason, the bowls weren't obeying orders! Why should this be? Just five days ago, I played against two up-and-coming England bowlers, in the Denny Cup, the flagship indoor bowls tournament in the UK. I played well - the pressure was on - and I responded, after 4 hours of play my team lost narrowly, but it was a highly respectable result against such quality opposition. So why this sudden slump in form?

My working theory is that as you play a sport at higher and higher standards, it becomes very hard to get enthusiastic about bog-standard games of no import - games where you can lose, and nobody minds. If I'm put under pressure, in front of an audience, I know I can compete with the best, because the adrenaline is pumping, my mind is focussed 100% on the game, and everything else is irrelevant. A circus of performing monkeys could set up next to my rink, and I wouldn't notice, because the game is all that matters.

I've read several stories about really good bowlers (Tony Allcock is one), who now refuse to play in any non-competitive games, because they know that they only perform under pressure. What's worse, is that they are likely to get beaten by less talented players, who can then parade around, boasting that "I beat Tony Allcock". Clearly, this is undesirable. How, then, can players of this level practice between matches? From my observations, players of this standard tend to form gaggles, or cliques, with other like-minded, and similarly talented players. They will then practice together, go drinking together, travel to games together, and hopefully, play together as part of the same team. Almost every club has such people - an elite group - almost a "club within a club". They may get frowned on by the average player, who isn't interested in winning silverware, and they will almost certainly be grumbled about by people from other clubs, who come off worse in an on-green encounter. However, I firmly believe that without these groups of top players, the game as a whole would collapse. The top level of competitive play would cease to exist, and all we'd be left with would be a hearing-aid beige montage of sub-standard bowlers, playing amongst themselves to pass the time. The talented cabals, for all their pitfalls, are a pointer to a higher standard, and a magnet for competitive players. They are something to aspire to.

Which brings me back to last night's game. I'm not a particularly outstanding player, and am currently not part of a clique of top players (much as I would like to be). Last night was a reminder that bowls is an incredibly random game, which twists and turns at unexpected moments, so much so that betting on a bowls match is almost unheard of. It was also a reminder that getting annoyed at a bad shot will never, ever help you, or your team. It's these facts, and more, that makes the game so appealing, and keeps us coming back for more.

New job, new blog

I'll be leaving Epic on November 2nd, and apart from saying goodbye to a fantastic bunch of people, I'll also be leaving my internal blog behind. It seems a shame to stop blogging... so I've set up this public-facing blog, as a place to leave some thoughts, impressions, and know-how (if I encounter it), for others to share.

I expect my postings to fall into one of three categories:

• Work-related posts on ColdFusion, databases and web servers
  
• General technology posts on new and interesting topics which I think are important
• Personal comments on life in general

I start my new job at Greenhouse on November 12th, so as the saying goes, "watch this space".

Pete.