Erator's Sandbox

Last year we bought one of those pre-made Thanksgiving dinners from La Madeline because we didn't feel like cooking and their prices were great for what you got. This year we were invited by my uncle to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family in their house, so I already has discarded worrying about the dinner, but today I received an unexpected phone call from La Madeline: "Last year you ordered the Thanksgiving dinner package from us, would you like to place your order for this years now?" It took me a minute to figure out what they were talking about and to remember what we had last year, but I was pleasantly surprised that they kept my phone number and only called me to offer me the same service I had already purchase from them before. So I let them know that I was not interested because we already had plans, and they said they were doing the packages for Christmas dinner too, in case we needed it. Great service and if you want to skip the cooking, call La Madeline, th...

Some days, it's easy to get into the work I have laid out in front of me. I think of it as interesting or worthwhile and I finish it as fast as I possibly can. Other days, I have a really hard time getting started. I know I have a pile of work to do, and that it's not going away, but unconsciously I find myself distracted away, looking for a new subject of interest online, or getting caught in the "Option Loop." The loop is simply thinking about all the options, but getting stuck not starting or finishing any of them. It's almost like a mental deadlock. Most of the times I am able to regain focus and productivity by: Getting a cup of coffee or a high-caffeine soda Turning on the lights Adjusting my chair Walking around a little bit Talking to someone else about my projects Unfortunately, there are times when none of the above works. The biggest problem is I know the best time to start is now , so I have no excuses. How do you get into your work when you'r...

As a software engineer, I've had the pleasure of receiving bug reports that make no sense whatsoever, and asking for additional info leads to dead ends and frustration. I really like what Joel recommends should be on a good bug report: Steps to reproduce, What you expected to see, and What you saw instead. But I have a couple of points to add, since in my experience people skip the basics: First and foremost, test it again to make sure that it is a valid bug. Specify what is not working, and where I can find it in the program. Avoid non-standard abbreviations. Proofread the bug report before submitting it to the resolver for any ambiguous information. As I started to write this post I thought I was very clear on what I was going to write and what I wanted exactly to be in a bug report, but, as I kept typing I started to remember all those pesky bug reports that annoyed me because they take forever to research and solve (especially the ones that end up being no-bugs). If you think ...

I must say I am impressed with Blogger. I love being able to customize things, and Blogger seems to give me enough bells and whistles to play around with to make me feel happy and in control. Thanks Blogger for giving us so many knobs, switches and buttons to tinker with, you've come a long way.

One word: Blogging. Is this what is has come to? Not too long ago, one needed to be pretty tech-savvy to install a script on one's own website and after trial-and-error successfully setup the required components to create a "blog" (which back then was known as content management systems -- I guess the CMS initials were not trendy enough). Now, one can create such a site in a matter of seconds. The biggest timesink is in finding the title and webaddress. Oh, did I mention blogs are free? Well, not free as in posting whatever content you want, but as in you have no financial obligations. Really, web logs -- sorry, I mean BLOGS -- have filled the internet with a lot of "crap," yes even this blog might be considered crap by some people, but the amount of spam and content cloning has increased significantly, because anyone can make a few dollars by posting the same information, plagiarizing what someone might of taken the time to develop, research and create and c...