A good way to celebrate
Today was an interesting day.
On friday we delivered the next version of the prototype i've been working on. It's kicking ass, but that's to be expected. :)
It's been a hell of a lot of work, with one guy on the team havng two weeks leave, then being sick, another guy having a couple of sick days near the end, and i was getting sick and wishing i was on leave, but we made it over the line with a few hours (almost a day) to spare. Yay team!
Today, we needed a little rest so, we declared it reinstall day, and three of us on the team all reinstalled our dev boxes today (well..one of them only has a laptop, so he did it mostly over the weekend). I was impressed at how well it went actually - i started at 9am (having prepped myself on friday and got most of my backups made then) and was coding again (at least, proving i was able to) at 4pm. Not a bad effort considering how long it takes Vs.net to install. Or how long it takes Rational ClearCase and ClearQuest (yick!! - don't get me started) to install.
Our machines were all in a bad state. Mine had been freshly installed when i first started working there, but whoever did it obviously didn't have a clue. I had VS.net, but no sql server, no IIS...not very useful. I'm superspicious when it comes to OS installs for a dev box. Everything has to go on in a specific order, or I get a 'feeling' that somethings not quite right. The OS first and whatever patches etc come from windows update. Then add IIS. Then updates again. Then Office. Then patch that. Then Sql Server, and SP3. Then miscellaneous useful tools - UltraEdit, Winzip, Winamp, etc. Then, and only then, do we consider coding. VB6 goes on first, because you never know when you'll need it :) This goes on before .net, and has the benefit of installing the MS JVM (which, yes, i know, is flawed, but I don't like running the SUN one). Then patch it. Then VS.net goes on, and the MSDN library. Then patch it. Then the platform SDK. Then all the other little things like acrobat reader, flash plugins, tweakui, blah blah blah. Then the virus software (because until this point there's very little net traffic, and I have a clue, and i'm behind several firewalls), then actually setup email (which, at work, means installing Lotus Notes, getting it working, then installing the Outlook Connector for Domino and then getting Outlook working). Then patch it. The, again, because i have to, the Rational Stuff. Then patch it. Tomorrow I add on PSP9 (I forgot to bring in the installer today).
I actually looked in horror as i noticed the other guy at work installing Sql server AFTER VS.net. I was gobsmacked. How could he?! I'm sure i'm jsut paranoid...but....
And i realised just before that today was my 6 month anniversary at my job. So what a better way to spend it than fixing up somethign was broken when i arrived? :) A monday 6 months ago i was so naive as to what was ahead of me. I expected impossible deadlines, extremely challenging work, all the standard stuff (and i got it), but this was my first time in a large office. It's different from a company that only has 15 people.
So happy 6 month anniversary to me. I'm enjoying it, it's good fun. I'm still keeping my eye open for a job at microsoft, but I can't say i'm looking especially hard, more hoping it lands in my lap, because it's hard to move on from somewhere that's fun :)
Oh yeah, and I redid the CSS on my blog pages too. Not sure i'm completely happy with it, but i thinks it's better. I probably overdid it on the whole gradient thing, but shit happens.
Listening to: angel - shaggy - (3:55)