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It was a lazy day, it was amazing grace, it was a half-a-dozen claymores daisy-chained.
Sometimes Aesop Rock lyrics are like audio cocaine. Not really sure why, but when i hear that line my brain melts a little. I don’t think that me being at work bored out of my mind helps much. Today is Thursday (my Friday) and i really don’t feel like doing anything. I’ve run my reports, i’m updating what i need to, everything else is running fine, and Zach’s working on our interface atm. I’ll probably start working on the Gatekeepers site in a bit, currently there’s not much to look at, it’s all back-end stuff. I’ve just hit that motivational blackhole, where it takes extreme amounts of willpower to do anything but surf the intarwebs.
I can’t believe they’re bailing out the big 3.. i wonder how this will impact our pocket books. I’m still adjusting to living on my own, having to pay bills and all that fun stuff.
Well, break time.
I got up at an ungodly hour this morning.. 4am..
I’d never done any shopping on Black Friday. And i don’t think i ever will again. The consumer hordes were out in mass this morning. We (Zach, Lakira, Brian(Bryan?), Frank, and I) decided to go to Wal-Mart first, just because we knew it was open. We could barely fit in the store. It reminded me of a bee hive, but instead of bees it was consumers, all ready to spend 3 hours in line to buy 25 vacuums or 5 televisions because they were inexpensive. Lakira was going to try and buy some pants, but we decided it wasn’t worth the hassle to try and get some pants for 50% off (or whatever the discount was). We then went to Office Depot, where we got in line just as the store opened. I was able to get a ticket for a deal they had on a 22″ Acer monitor; I got it purely on impulse. I’m glad i did get the monitor, even before the 50 dollar mail in rebate it’s very affordable (180 dollars). So, i’m here typing this viewing it on a sexy new monitor. I can’t wait to play Eve on it 
The rest of the morning was spent going to various stores just looking at deals and amusing ourselves at how people behave on little to no sleep, and the pressure to get things NOW! It also makes me think of how we as a people get into such states. Are we just consumer cattle for the corporations? It’s totally what it seemed like today. People moving together like cattle in a corral, being fed propaganda that they need to buy things because they’re cheaper than any other time of the year. I mean, i’m not above them, hell, i bought a monitor on impulse. I’d been thinking about getting a new one, and i got the chance to get a deal. So, why not, right? On the other side though, i didn’t go and buy 15 cordless mice, and a basket full of memory cards.
I guess that’s what they call Capitalism. Anyway, I’m off to go play some video games and drool at my sexy new resolution.
At work, we’re pretty much restricted to using Internet Explorer 6. I’m a rebel and use Firefox anyway.
There are lots of free alternatives to Internet Explorer on the internet. But why use them? What advantages do they have over what comes default on most machines people buy? Lets break it down into three categories; Security, Expandibility, and Usability. I’m going to cover Internet Explorer and my personal favorite alternative, Firefox.
Security
Number of Vulnerabilities
Internet Explorer 6
- 25+ vulnerabilities
Internet Explorer 7
- 24 vulnerabilities
Firefox 3.0.4
- 1 vulnerability
General Security Policies
Internet Explorer 6
- No integrated popup blocking
- Cookie Acceptance configurability
Internet Explorer 7
- Basic popup blocking integration
- Cookie Acceptance configurability
Firefox 3.0.4
- Configurable popup blocking
- Cookie Acceptance configurability
Expandibility
Internet Explorer 6
- No Integrated Addon support
Internet Explorer 7
- Simple Addon Support
Firefox 3.0.4
- Integrated Addon Search and Installation/Upgrade Support
Usability
Internet Explorer 6
- No RSS Support
- Doesn’t display pages according to the W3C Standard
Internet Explorer 7
- Good RSS Support
- Doesn’t display pages according to the W3C Standard
Firefox 3.0.4
- Good RSS Support
- Displays pages according to the W3C Standard
So after all these little tidbits, I ask myself, why are we using the oldest and most vulnerable browser out of the lot? If anything, we should probably be upgrading to IE7, since you know free open-source projects are never as good as things you have to shell out hard earned money for.
Contemplate this: Even if you don’t have a general dislike of Microsoft, and are willing to give them your cash, why would you go and use something that’s not as secure as something else? Just because you paid for it? (Yes, Internet Explorer is not free, it’s bundled with your Windows License). Firefox on the other hand is free, available for multiple platforms (Windows, Linux, BSD, Mac, Unix, etc etc), and it’s Open-Source.
References:
W3C
Wikipedia
SecurityFocus
So today we had to install the oracle client on a few machines at work. Man, what a pain that was. It took almost an hour to get the thing setup. I don’t understand why it should take that long to install a client that lets you connect to another database type. I’ve used mySQL a lot in the past, and i’ve never had to wait that long to be able to have a program use it to connect. Other gripes i have about Oracle, is that when you go to their website to download a newer version of their client, there are half a dozen choices. I feel that’s way too many. mySQL for example only has a handful of choices, but, with each download link it explains what that particular client is for. With oracle, it’s not like that. It’s just called Client 11.1.1.11 or 10.8.23.4.. I understand it probably has something to do with different server versions, but still, why not have a client that can work with multiple versions of your database server? Are they really that different?
I think i’m done ranting for a bit. Hopefully tonight I’ll get some work done on our next project.
XNA FTW 
I’d seen ads for Left 4 Dead a while ago and figured it was just another Zombie game. Then a friend at work recommended the demo. I went and got it the last day the demo was available. After an hour or so of downloading, Sean and I were deep inside a subway station fighting for our lives! Just from the two or three levels you were able to play on the demo i was hooked! So I went and bought the game yesterday, after i got off work. I spent the rest of the evening fighting my way through hordes of zombies with 3 other people online. I have to say, it’s the most fun i’ve had in a co-op game before. The AI director really adds to the whole feeling of intensity by changing where the zombies come from and where things drop. So far i’ve only played through the first 4 levels ending with the final battle on the rooftop of a hospital where we kept dying. That’s when I called it a night, since it was creeping in on midnight.
The game really excels at scaring the crap out of you. You can hear the zombies as they gather in a room close by, but you don’t know which one. You look for them and you can’t seem to find them. Then all of a sudden they burst through a door or wall or the ceiling and swarm you! I’d highly recommend the game to anyone! [LGNBM]Krandor is my steam tag. Add me up!
Something i forgot to post on my last post was my new plugin i’m working on. Not so much at work this time, well, ok that’s a lie, but yea.. You can check out the work in progress here and here. Basically it’ll be like a friends page for all your twitter friends. This way you don’t have to log into twitter to see all the tweets they’ve been posting. Currently i’m leaving it as the last 5 tweets they’ve posted. This keeps page loads fairly quick, though the more friends you have the longer it will take to load. I’m working on pagination atm, so it’ll be broken down to maybe 10 friends per page.
Another weekend at the new house. I’m really starting to get used to this. I guess i’ll get started with some things that have been a while coming. I finally uploaded those pictures of the house. Everything is still in half-moved in status, so please excuse the mess  Click Here For Pictures!. I’ll take pictures of the outside and garage later. They’re not really that exciting anyway.
Today was saturday. I guess technically it still is, but it’s more than halfway over already :P. I played some Eve this morning; we went to Geminate and killed people. Fun stuff. My Rail Deimos actually worked! I think our ratio ended up being 7-0. No losses is always good
I found out on thursday that my grandfather passed away. To be honest, i’m not really that torn up about it. I hadn’t seen him in years, and we hadn’t really had quality time in much longer than that. He’d also been quite sick for the last year or so, so his passing wasn’t unexpected. It’s much worse for my father. He flew out today to attend the funeral on Monday. The whole ordeal made me think about what i’ll be feeling and going through when my dad does eventually pass — yes, our parents aren’t immortal and will eventually die. Really i don’t want to think about stuff like that. but in actuality i think it’s better that i do this now instead of later — or keep putting it off until it’s too late. I guess this way i’m somewhat prepared for it.
Work has been ok. Right now we’re pretty much on autopilot. Go in in the morning, do our processing and data retrieval, run any reports that are needed, and then surf the internet till it’s time to go home. It’s pretty cake right now. I’m just waiting for the motivation to hit to start on a new big project.
So for those of you who’ve been under a rock, or don’t pay attention to politics, or watch the news, or just plain ol’ don’t pay attention, Barak Obama is now our new president elect! Our first black president! How exciting!
I can’t wait to see what all will be done in the first 100 days, and beyond! If he does well, i’m sure i’d vote for him again! Exciting times and exciting events, it’s a great time to be alive
Time to get back to work If i remember, i’ll post pictures of the house! Someone email me to remind me
Just finished my first whole weekend at the new place. It’s starting to really feel like home the more i use things and put things in their proper place (like clothes in my dresser instead of in the hamper).
Friday night was Halloween. Zach made me a zombie, his makeup job was awesome! I’ve posted pictures across pretty much every networking site i’m part of, as well as flickr. That night Sean also moved some more of his stuff into the house before I left for the Halloween Party i’d been invited to. Good times had by all i must say. I came home, went to sleep and woke up bright and early the next day for our first So Not Soft meeting.
[Edit]: So Not Soft has also opened it’s bank account. Meaning we don’t have to tie any costs to our personal monies!! YES! [/EDIt]
At our meeting we covered a lot of things dealing with our new game (which i’m not going to go into detail here). Next thing i’m going to have to do is get XNA 3.0 installed on my machine. I kinda forgot on saturday (sorry, zach :P). I’ll see what sean and i can get going this week.
Now i’m back at work, bored like usual. Sucks when you automate pretty much everything.
Our store is now open for business! We finally got our paperwork yesterday making our LLC official! We also got our EIN (aka Federal Tax Identification Number), which means that we can start taking money from victims.. i mean, customers.
*yawn* require caffeine
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