The long awaited
2006-09-07 18:12:34
general
Been busy. At least that's my excuse for not having posted for the last three weeks or so. It's not so much that lots of stuff has been happening as, well, lots of stuff has been happening.
Geeky stuff first, I got a MacPro at work, yay! I'm endevouring to keep it clear of all the crap I normally install on my work computer to test, and using a Mac Mini as a junk machine instead, that way I can wipe it when it's getting too slow. It took me about a day to install all the stuff I needed on the MacPro, and I just can't do that once a month. To be honest I haven't really had a chance to thrash out the processor, and due to Kensington not making the RAM properly for the MacPro yet, I'm only sitting on one GB at the moment. By gods it compiles fast though, XCode flies.
Cat has come and gone, she's Spain now and Andy should be making his way in that general direction fairly soon too. It was great to see her, now I just need Greta, Chloe & Beth to come over here and Elisse and I will have put everyone up for at least one night.
Work has been hectic, as per usual. We had stocktake at the London Forbidden Planet store this Tuesday, which went really quickly. I got sent home early - bit after eleven - and came back in to work for nine. Problem with FileMaker - as great as it is - and scanners is that most USB scanners can't be configured to send a Return character (ETX) after a barcode - as opposed to an Enter (CR). So when you scan a barcode you have to hit the return key. Obviously I'm not big on that idea, and got sick of it. More so this stocktake then previously, so I've written an application for OS X that looks for something that might be a barcode - more than eight digits in a row inputted quicker than you can type follow by no input for a slightly longer fraction of a second - and then follows it with an ETX. It sits in the background and should work with whatever program is currently active. If anyone thinks this is useful, email me.
Anyway, off to our first Titan book club meeting tonight, although I haven't yet finished reading The Wind-up Bird Chronicles, it's a great book though. I'll post sooner next time, promise.
Geeky stuff first, I got a MacPro at work, yay! I'm endevouring to keep it clear of all the crap I normally install on my work computer to test, and using a Mac Mini as a junk machine instead, that way I can wipe it when it's getting too slow. It took me about a day to install all the stuff I needed on the MacPro, and I just can't do that once a month. To be honest I haven't really had a chance to thrash out the processor, and due to Kensington not making the RAM properly for the MacPro yet, I'm only sitting on one GB at the moment. By gods it compiles fast though, XCode flies.
Cat has come and gone, she's Spain now and Andy should be making his way in that general direction fairly soon too. It was great to see her, now I just need Greta, Chloe & Beth to come over here and Elisse and I will have put everyone up for at least one night.
Work has been hectic, as per usual. We had stocktake at the London Forbidden Planet store this Tuesday, which went really quickly. I got sent home early - bit after eleven - and came back in to work for nine. Problem with FileMaker - as great as it is - and scanners is that most USB scanners can't be configured to send a Return character (ETX) after a barcode - as opposed to an Enter (CR). So when you scan a barcode you have to hit the return key. Obviously I'm not big on that idea, and got sick of it. More so this stocktake then previously, so I've written an application for OS X that looks for something that might be a barcode - more than eight digits in a row inputted quicker than you can type follow by no input for a slightly longer fraction of a second - and then follows it with an ETX. It sits in the background and should work with whatever program is currently active. If anyone thinks this is useful, email me.
Anyway, off to our first Titan book club meeting tonight, although I haven't yet finished reading The Wind-up Bird Chronicles, it's a great book though. I'll post sooner next time, promise.