echohelloworld

Today, I want to talk about work. I like my job. I love to learn new things and be met with new challenges, and in my job that’s my daily bread. I like to challenge myself, too. Every project I undertake, I do better than the last one. That’s not to the discredit of the last one, because it was as good as I was capable of at the time. I challenge myself to get the job done with less code, smaller files, less-to-no repetition. I hate to compromise, even though the web frequently forces me to do so. I even hate to compromise when the compromise is better than what I was initially aiming for, because I had to forego something that was unachievable. I don’t like to admit that I had a bad idea (even though I can, and I consider it very important to be able to).

I think I’m good at what I do. I take a lot of pride in my work, and it shows in the enthusiasm with which I present myself and my work.

However, with each project I finish, I become more aware of and frustrated by the limitations that are inflicted upon web-workers on a day-to-day basis by certain aspects of the web. The problem is split about 70/30 in my eyes between users who use and insist on using antiquated software and the software itself. Looking at it from this angle, it would be easy to say that users are 100% of the problem, but I don’t think it’s right to let certain vendors get off scot-free, being substantially arrogant to release ridiculously sub-standard software.

The crux of this small point (I could go on but, as I said, all my midnight oil is gone) is that there are a lot of developers who have a real passion for user experience, right down to the stuff that you don’t even think about, and we do it as a hobby even when we’re not getting paid!

This is why I’m not obnoxiously telling you that you’re an idiot for using a Microsoft web browser - as a user, the majority of the reasons I want you to switch aren’t important to you, I’m simply asking that you try one of the amazing alternatives that are free, faster, easier to use (everything new involves a learning curve) and created by people who actually care about your experience and aren’t just putting a browser out because being seen as having a large market share is important for their image as a software giant. A couple of weeks ago, 8 million people downloaded Firefox 3 in one day, and I’d really appreciate it if you did the same, it would definitely make my life a load easier to be able to drop support for barely-capable browsers.

If you try and don’t like Firefox, definitely take a look at Opera, another amazing browser.

You’ll thank me for this later.

Nothing particularly special about this, but I love the reflections in the glass so in it goes!

Today, I witnessed how temperamental postfix can be, yet again. On our test server, postfix wasn’t starting and hadn’t been for around 35 days. There was also a cron queueing up mail every minute as well as the regular apps. This lead to over 430,000 emails being backed up and it was my job to remove them all! What fun!

I’ve also found out that I’m going to be making an iPhone app. I’m so excited!

I like triangles.

I also like my bike. I say “like”, I mean “liked”. Someone took my poor BMX off our balcony today, which sucks. We don’t have bikes insured on our contents insurance either! Mondays, eh?

One of the reservations I originally had about getting pierced (and the subsequent inclination to stretch even the most innapropriate piercings. No, not that one) was that it might, in some way, decrease my chances of getting a job. I have since realised that the decent companies hire on enthusiasm, talent and personality (not necessarily in that order) and not personal appearance. Obviously if you’ve got poor personal hygiene then it’s going to affect you wherever you go, but if you choose to dye/dread your hair or get piercings or tattoos, does that really say anything about you as a professional?

Since I dreaded my hair and got pierced, I’ve worked for a FTSE Top 100 company, an HR and Payroll software provider and now a fast-growing creative agency. None of these companies even mentioned my piercings or dreads, and there were people at the former two who were obsessed with how you dread hair and how you stretch piercings. Why is it, then, that when I speak to people about work the first thing the majority ask is if I find it difficult to get work looking the way I look? If I were more self-conscious, this might have started to get to me but I always assume they’re talking about the hair and ears. I guess we’re in pretty radically changing times right now with regard to body mods. I see so many people around with pretty large stretches (I would say that my lobe is above average, but I’ve seen some people in the street with at least 35mm) and this is indicative to me of a wider acceptance of body modifications and a general ability to separate an individual’s personality and the trinkets with which they choose to adorn themselves (thanks, Howard). (more…)

I’m all for reusable code. Whenever I’m coding, I’m constantly wondering if there’s a way that I can further abstract what I’ve done so I can use it somewhere else. Because of this, I came across a problem yesterday that got the better of me a little.

I’m working on a project at the moment that requires me to have an awareness of “working” days. Specifically, when a product is sold, the customer has three working days to cancel their order. This would be all well and good if there was 365 working days in the year, and all companies were the same. I started out with this assumption, but was quickly confounded.

Before I explain how I solved (well, only partially - it would require a calendar app to fully solve it to my satisfaction!) it, I’ll explain a little about how some classes come to be in my workflow. (more…)