What I’m Blogging

I hate Windows. I hate large corporations that deploy and use Windows. I hate it more when they do so without the benefits of real security and anti-virus software. And “Oh ya”, I hate people who code viruses and trojans.

…minutes, hours, days all meld together…

For the last week the team at the office has been battling an infection on a massive scale. Several of the little buggers got loose in the TV Land network and now the cries of “unclean” echo from coast to coast. Minutes, hours, days all meld together, as the task of clean up expands to fill all available time. Long days, little sleep, and an inability to perform any other activity has taken it’s toll and I spent the majority of my weekend “off” sleeping.

The Company has hired an army of contractors to patch and clean their thousands of machines. Vendors are lining up to pitch the latest and greatest security offerings. The economic fallout from it is going to be huge.

I get rotated back into the line tomorrow. Hopefully the madness will have subsided by then, but I’m, as ever, not hopeful.

It’s been fun Microsoft. From the heady days of Windows 3.1, through the rock star arrival of Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000, and XP (Home and Pro). We’ve had some times haven’t we? Remember when there were 20 diskettes for an install? But sadly all good things must come to an end.

…cash in my wallet…

You see, old friend, we’ve come along way together, but I just can’t go down this new road with you. I just can’t bring myself to put aside my completely serviceable laptop to take in this new “Vista” with you. You always seem to want more; more memory, more horsepower, more money. Well I just don’t have it. Now don’t get all upset… and no I’m not going to get one of those Apples either. Even though all the cool kids want one, they just want more too…

You go ahead into your bright future… I’m just going to stay here with what I have, my new penguin friend Linux, my old trusty laptop, and my cash in my wallet.

After the Install

Wisdom tells us that no matter what, the install expands to absorb all available time alloted for it, and then some. It is also a known fact that no plan survives contact with the enemy and no matter how much you prepare something will always rear up to throw a spanner into the gears. The network got moved. It more or less works the same way it previously did. Best of all, there’s a dark light in a pint glass at the end of the tunnel…

It was on this day in 1814 that a man named George Stephenson made the first successful demonstration of the steam locomotive in Northern England. His engine pulled eight loaded wagons of thirty tons’ weight about four miles and hour up a hill.

…Emblem of motion and / power—pulse of the continent…

But though the locomotive was invented in England, it had its greatest impact on the United States, where there was so much wide-open space and so many natural resources to take advantage of. By 1840, the United States had 2,800 miles of railroad track. By 1872 that number had increased to 52,000 miles of railroad track.

Walt Whitman called the locomotive “Emblem of motion and / power—pulse of the continent.” But some people weren’t too happy about the introduction of the locomotive and the faster pace of life it brought. Henry David Thoreau wrote, “This world is a place of business. What an infinite bustle! I am awaked almost every night by the panting of the locomotive. It interrupts my dreams. There is no Sabbath. It would be glorious to see mankind at leisure for once. It is nothing but work, work, work.”

No I’m not hallucinating. I’m not hearing things from alternate planes of existence. But I am engaging in a little template tweaking, a little tecnocrati slight of hand, and giving back a little to the blogging community.

I’ve spent a while playing around with my Technocrati Favourites list, adding all the blogs that I folllow and link to. It’s a very interesting tool and the widget that lets me show the latest feeds from them is kinda cool. So over to the right in a place of honour are those “Other Voices” from the bloggers I read.

The one thing I’ll say positive about Gigantic Concrete, other than my amazing staff (so OK, two positive things), is that they were a target rich environment for the geek-o-phile. They were awash in company provided and paid for gadgets of every shape and size. Flash memory, mobile computing and network access, cool accessories of all type, and cell phones. I ran my entire department from a Dell 610 laptop, a Sierra Air Card 580, and a Blackberry 6510. It was a good thing I had the mobility, because at the end, I didn’t have a desk or office to call my own. Space was tight and I gave up mine for my team, but I digress.

I could go cold turkey from the company, but I knew I was going to need a new cellphone, which led to an internal monologue about how I’d need to keep my contacts, appointments, etc…, which led to a debate with myself about how I really needed a PDA and a phone, but money was tight, leading ultimately to the decision to get an all in one device. I picked my new toy, the Audiovox 6600. I got a deal from Telus Mobility and picked the thing up for next to nothing. It satisfies all my geeky nerdly impulses and actually functions as a phone too. The fact that I can log into the servers I manage from the local coffee shop is purely a bonus. It runs Windows Mobile 2003, interfaces with my outlook perfectly, is a voice recorder and a camera as well.

The perfect little tool for a “freerange geek” like me.