Be Glad There’s One Place in the World Where Everybody Knows Your Name
Today was pretty fun. A little before noon my boss brought Namon (I think?) over to upgrade both my and Manjot's installs of Office 2000 to Office XP/2007/whatever. Works fine on her machine, she's running XP. Seems to work fine on my NT machine, but.. I reboot like the installer wants me to and go to open the Access Database we use and... error city. OK, close Access, try to open the database again... wait, why are you searching for msaccess.exe? Why do the shortcuts to Access no longer work? Why is msaccess.exe GONE? What? Oh, great. How did this happen? Alright, reinstall Office... Nope, Access doesn't even isntall this time. ...OK, let's put the old Office on... er.. installer exited prematurely due to an unexpected error? Cool! Not only can I now not access the database, I don't have Outlook anymore either! Basically, I can't really do anything at the moment. The dude said he was gonna go find the CD 'cause that might help (he was doing a network install before), but he never came back. ...
Because this whole fiasco took about three hours or so, I wasn't able to get lunch... So here I am starving with forty minutes left on the clock... I am going straight to Chipotle after work and getting another big-as-my-head burrito. It will be delicious and filling.
I definitely have a lot more money in my bank account than I thought, so I can totally justify buying this burrito. I might also be able to justify a new keyboard.. After using the laptop for the weekend, I realized how shit my five year old keyboard is. The space bar only works in the middle, a lot of keys either don't hit or hit multiple times.. It's annoying. I found a neat keyboard on newegg that's about $50, same exact key layout as my current one (which is great, I love this layout), glows just the same, but looks to be of higher quality than mine. Thing is, a wired Apple keyboard is also $50, and that thing is sexy. I have heard of some issues with the Apple keyboard and Linux, but I'd have to do more research.
Half an hour..
I've been spending my free time doing a lot of... nothing. Well, nothing social or interesting, just playing around with my computers.. I got Skype working on the laptop, full webcam and front mic support too! Tested it with David last night, works pretty well. Someone Skype me at sugar_death sometime :(((
A while back Nicole linked me to a Youtube of some dude who took a picture of himself once per day for like.. a couple of years? I'm thinking about doing something like that. It'd be pretty neat. I look like shit in one of the test pictures I took Sunday morning after I installed Cheese.
I can totally camwhore now that I've got the mic working too.. <_<
I really hope my boss gets me a new machine... an XP machine. How many of our clients are really using NT still, anyway? How many of our apps are web based? The majority of them, right? That's OS independent there. Give me an XP machine already!
I feel so disconnected without email. It's pretty awesome. I can't see if I'm supposed to test these three work requests in production that I've been working on. I can't... see anything. I can't send my boss a Daily Status Report.. Haha, that'll be fun to explain tomorrow. "Yeah, he said he was coming back, but he didn't."
I should have quite a bit more money come this Friday, too. And then two weeks after that... and two weeks from that... I won't be broke-ass for some time! It'll be.. exciting. What will I do with that money? Buy food.
Ah! I forgot to grab my Costco card while at home... :/
I wonder if I should be saving these to my desktop as I type them? I haven't deleted any yet, I've got two for yesterday and one for today. I can really delete them after I post them.. Laziness will fuck me over, watch.
Twenty minutes.. Go me for getting into work fifteen minutes late, thus leaving fifteen minutes late.
My timesheet has three hours unallocated to any Work Request. That's a fair amount of time that I was watching Mr. Dude play around on my computer.
The AutoTester script that I was working on screws up massively when I make it start searching... It's a pain in the ass. Actually, no, what it is is that the developers set the address for a 'Terms of Use' link on this ONE page to $CURRENT_ADDRESS + "#" instead of linux-ts/test/apweb/terms.cfm. Ugh. I should email Melanie about it so she could fix it quickly..
OH WAIT
Gay.
Fifteen minutes.
When leaning forward, my bangs (can they really be called bangs at this length? I part my hair and they're mostly off to the side) fall forward and hit me on the mustache area. I can almost get them in my mouth if I try (well that sounded dirty).
Twelve.
I like how I can write and write while bored at work but I can't arse myself to even open WordPress to begin writing while bored at home.
I really should have left Dude Man at my computer and gone to get lunch anyway. The hunger pains were pretty bad for a while there... but they're gone now for some reason. I don't understand it.
Man I love the YTMND soundtracks. Number eight has The Lonely Man Theme, which some of you may recognize as the end credits music for the old Incredible Hulk TV show.
ALSO AXEL F. I think I may have mentioned this before?
Four.
Lights off in the server room.
Lots of TV themes.. Cheers, Flintstones, Bill Nye, MacGuyver, The Price is Right, and a few others?
Out of here. Big ass burrito time!
Corbin Dallas Multi-Test
I've finally got things to do at work. I've got a few work requests trickling in here or there, but my boss also added me to a generic, do-this-in-your-free-time request which basically just involves me finding ways to automate testing. He gave me this program, AutoTester One, to fool around with. It is really neat. In roughly two work days I had it already testing AccessPlus Web for Terms of Use links and an up to date copyright (a previous WR that I was on). It logs in to whichever server you tell it to (testing, staging, production), and will go through each major app of APWeb and check the footer. It's pretty neat. The third day was spent fine tuning it and today was spent working on having it go through all three servers in one go if you wish. I just need to figure out what else I want it to test... It's really nice because it can record your actions all macro like, or you can script it. Guess which I went for? The manual was all "This program is easy because you don't have to learn scripting languages, it records what you do!" The recording thing didn't always pick up what I did or it recorded it incorrectly (it's supposed to be able to interface with IE very well, and it does, just not when recording). But the scripting side? While it's no Perl, it is a lot nicer than having to fight with the recorder. It even has a little comments column to the right.. I've gotten in the habit of putting stupid little notes there. Where it starts outputting to the log file, I have "Captains Log / Stardate $DATE / The mission was a routine / test of APWeb..." And when it checks to see if it is supposed to check all servers I have "Corbin Dallas Multi Test."
And then just other stupid things like "GOGOGO" when it clicks a button immediately followed by "WAITWAITWAIT" while it waits for the page to load, "Goodnight sweet prince..." when the program ends..
I've also used the comments to sort of define functions.. The scripting language uses Gotos and Performs (a modified Goto that will allow you to jump back up to where you were), so I just made a bunch of Performs and treat them as functions/methods/whatever.
In the left column I have, for example:
FUNCTION: logIn {
.Account Name
.Account Password
.User Name
.User Password
.GOGOGO
.WAITWAITWAIT
.
.
.Stop here if login fails..
.what would reasons be?
.
.
.
.
RETURN }
and the actual code:
Label "logIn"
WebInputFieldValue "[FORM]DocketSearch::[TEXT]accountname" ACCT.NAME
WebInputFieldValue "[FORM]DocketSearch::[PASSWORD]accountpassword" ACCT.PASS
WebInputFieldValue "[FORM]DocketSearch::[TEXT]username" USER.NAME
WebInputFieldValue "[FORM]DocketSearch::[PASSWORD]userpassword" USER.PASS
WebClickButton "[FORM]DocketSearch::[IMAGE]Login"
WebLookWindow "" "AccessPlus | Court Docket" wait 60
If No
>Log LOG.DIR $TIME
>Log LOG.DIR "Login Unsuccessful! Stopping test..."
>Goto "ENDPROG"
Otherwise
>Log LOG.DIR $TIME
>Log LOG.DIR "Login Successful!"
Continue
It's... an awkward language at first..
Anyway, time to get out of here and go home.
(Maybe I'll screenshot it Monday at work so you can see how it actually looks... it works well in the program's layout)
Looking for Love on the El
(To self: You're doing it wrong)
I started work last Thursday and have just been kinda sitting and watching one of two of my three coworkers that knows what their doing (the third started a week before I did). It's really boring, but got slightly better today when I was given some work to do. It's nice to be able to do things. I need to bring a bigger lunch and caffeine. I honestly think that, save for parking, driving to form work would be cheaper than taking the El. It's $2 there, $2 back. That's $12 a week. I could partially fill my tank up for $20 and it would last me more than a month. The place is only about ten to fifteen minutes driving from campus. It's straight up State Street. Fifteen minutes driving is.. what, two miles at most? This is a wild guess here, but I'd put my mileage at about 20 to 25 miles per gallon. Sure the lights along he way will hurt that, but still. Twenty bucks would be almost five gallons, more or less (heavy on the less). That could definitely last me a month or more of just straight driving to/from work. Definitely cheaper than public transportation (unless my tired brain is doing something wrong here).
The commercials for the new Dragonball Z game that involve a bunch of random, ordinary people yelling "KAMEHAMEHA" while doing whatever they do amuses me greatly.
Yeah, I definitely think I might be coming down with the oral death again. Kind of makes sense, though. New environment at work. Keyboard and mouse (especially the keyboard) are dirty and probably germy as fuck. Last time it was.. two weeks? after Nicole and I started going out. Introduction of someone else's germy germs into my system would be a good reason for these assholes in my throat to try to kill me. (I believe the tonsils are related to the immune system in some way) The first time I got tonsilitis? I don't recall anything that could have introduced foreign contagions into my body at the time. If this goes real, becomes legit (damn you Joy!), that'll be three bouts of tonsillitis within six months. That's pretty terrible. Fuck you tonsils.
Ugh... I don't really feel like writing up a ton of stuff about the past two and a half weeks of class. Basically: Prof K. is as terrible as ever. Can hardly follow his own code. Reads directly from the API without expanding upon it. The Prof for Science and Belief is pretty damn awesome. She is in about her sixties, I'd say, has some sort of European accent (maybe?), and can be pretty damn funny. I think most of her funny is unintentional, but that only makes it better. She let one of the girls in class bring in an episode of South Park (that related really well to the material we were talking about, actually) without prescreening it. Today we're watching Contact. It's a really nice class, I enjoy it.
You can find some really pretty girls on the El platforms/trains (I don't usually look around while walking, but sitting on/waiting for the train is boring so I like to take in my surroundings; it's also fun to look in windows as the train whooshes past apartment buildings). It's a shame that American society is so closed that just trying to strike up a harmless conversation would be seen as weird and creepy. How did people meet each other in the past?
Swallowing is... fun... :neutral:
KAMEHAMEHA-cough cough cough cough cough cough :sad:
Despite my previous post lamenting my lack of social interaction with former work buddies, I do enjoy it in the city. I love riding the train between the tall buildings. I love walking through the crowds, becoming just another face in the crowd. It's very awesome. I don't see how people wouldn't want to live here. There's... so much to do, so much going on. It's awesome.
Hey! Hey hey hey!
I have a job! That Hogan dude finally called me back and checked my references yesterday. I start work on Thursday! Kick-fucking-ass.
Whoa, sweet.
I have an interview for a part-time position as a software tester tomorrow at 9AM. Kickass. It'll be somewhere between twenty and thirty hours a week at ten dollars an hour. Awesome.
Casey interviewed for the position earlier today and says the interview is more of a test and that supposedly we are the only two that have applied so far. Pretty cool.
I am excited. The dude understands that we're students and will be flexible with our hours as such. I hope the interview goes well and that I get the job. :mrgreen: