Month: July 2003

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It’s that time again

The good news is, my presentation went well in class today. I showed off the forum that I mentioned in my previous post. Now all I have left in this class is the final on next Thursday. After that it’s just one more semester and then I’ll graduate in December.

Now for the bad news. Since summer’s almost over, that means all of the students will be coming back to school soon. We only have about two weeks to get labs set up, user accounts and directories created, software loaded, and everything else that has to happen before students can be set loose on our computers at work.

I guess it’s not so bad. The fall semester always seems like a race to Christmas break. Since I’ll be already getting my degree this December, who knows what else Santa might bring me…

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A forum

The discussion forum that I started working on about a month ago is finally ready for a little testing. I haven’t put a link for it under navigation yet, but you can get to it by going to http://tonyandpaige.com/forum/.

It should be pretty simple to use. You don’t have to sign up, or enter a password to get in. Just click on a topic to view the posts or use the form to start a new topic. Once I’m sure that the system works pretty well, I’ll replace the current comments system with this forum.

In case you’re wondering why it’s so simple, it was inspired by the forums at . Joel is a really smart guy with some great ideas about running a small business and writing good code. This forum is based on the ideas in his article .

Try it out, and let me know if it breaks…

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Software Sharecroppers

There was an interesting article posted the other day on Slashdot comparing programmers to sharecroppers. Here’s a quote:

If you’re developing software for … any platform that is owned and operated by a company. They own the ground you’re building on, and if they decide they don’t like you, or they can do something better with the ground, you’re toast. They can ship their own product and give it away till you go bust, then start charging for it; and use secret APIs you can’t see; and they can break the published APIs you use.

The full article is available here. This is just one more reason to avoid proprietary software.

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62 Words

I just got 3 hours of college credit for typing 62 words on a computer. How is that possible, you ask? Simple, I typed those 62 words in one minute… Texas A&M – Commerce gives credit for the keyboarding class to anyone who types over 35 wpm and pays them $25.

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Tech Vocabulary

Do you really know what all the latest technology buzz words mean? AMD has put a quiz where you can test your knowledge. They call it the Technology Terminology and Complexity Test.

All of these seemed pretty easy to me, but that’s probably because I read about and use words like these every day. Let me know how you do.

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Happy 4th

It’s kinda funny, my last post was about the great lack of vacation time in the US and now I’ve got a week off from work.

Everyone thinks that you get tons of vacation time when you work for a school district, and they’re half right. There are several weeks during the year that I don’t work. The trouble is I don’t get paid for those weeks either. As far as paid time off is concerned, I get just about as many days as anyone else.

Oh well, at this point I’ll take what I can get. I hope everyone had a safe and happy 4th of July. I know we did. It seemed like three straight days of cooking out and fireworks. Paige was nice enough to buy me a new charcoal grill a few days ago, so the cook outs will continue.