Start of March

Bought another watch this month, a Seiko Sportura kinetic Titanium to replace a Seiko watch I was given as a Birthday present 12 years ago. These watches last a long time, need no battery (self wind) and keep the time. The price is high at around $900 but you get what you pay for.

On the day job side, things at the bank seem to be going crazy. They are so obsessed about saving money after the prime mortgage marked collapsed that they are getting rid of lots of really good teams in the UK and giving the jobs to not so good teams in other countries which have cheap labour. The workload does not decrease and the pressure on teams has now reached breaking point. I can see a lot of customer impact coming in the next 12 months as projects with very poor design will be going in to production. What makes me mad is that our management know we will need to divert most of the team to try and keep things going (we support many businesses in the bank), but are too scared to stand up and try and make them see the customer impact coming. Banks are happy to keep disasters quiet as long as customers do not get affected. So the next time you call your bank and get “All our operators are busy, call later” is just one example of a badly designed system not being able to cope with the data, yet hardware upgrade is not an option because it costs money. All the while the bank pleads poverty and gives most staff no pay-rise or bonus for working most of last year 7 days a week, yet the people at the top and dealers still get a nice increase. To me this is too greedy but most banks I know are the same or worse. There is one Swiss bank I know which intimidates staff to work at least 12 hour days when their contract is 9am-5pm. I am only still here because I have been with the group nearly 15 years (working for different banks within the group) and I like some of the people I work with and when they eventually get rid of our team, I should be a fair compensation.

Now on to my EscSoft work…. I almost finished the cover art import program which I hope to release in beta form in the next week. I also started to re-write iDump in .net to get used to the syntax. I will get it working and then pass the source to Andie to make it look better if he wants before releasing. Also looking at other tools to write in .net starting with a version of the iPod Cover Art Import, a program to copy music between iPods including the cover art and then a new version of iDumpPro as a full media library.

The last few weeks I have watched documentarys on SAS, Future Weapons and history of War, Pirates and treasure hunters. Films, Stardust (again) and Signs.

It's Feb already

We are in Feb already and seems like the year is going to wiz by.

Lots happening at the bank with application upgrades and working on some VB script code to check internal IBM Websphere MQ object settings which will also validate/remove unknown user accounts.

I have spent a little time working on my program which will download and install album covers on the iPods.

Hot tub heater and pump is being sent back to Canadian Spar for the 3^rd time in as many weeks. Every time the unit is delivered, it’s been smashed by the delivery company. I think once it has been repaired again, I will have to drive to their office and collect it myself. Courier companies in the UK are really crappy these days. I used to order items to be delivered before noon the following day but most of the time they are not delivered until after or they get stolen and have to wait for a reorder. Sucks!

Andie has found a place to live in Australia but because he has no internet, he has to drive-by hack a wireless network so he can collect email. He does not like it but the only other way to access the internet is via the local library but that way is limited on what you can do.

Went to Uncle Andy’s funeral a couple of weeks ago, very sad but cousin Peter gave a lovely speech on how his father helped him and what a really nice person he was. Last Sunday we went to the graveyard and laid Andy’s and grandmothers ashes to rest. It was a very emotional time for all. I said to Peter as we stood by my father’s grave (he died in 1995 aged 49) that unless people go through loss of a loved one, they can never truly understand the pain you feel inside.

At Andy’s funeral, I met a cousin whose name is Darren who I have not seen since 1993 when we were down in Cornwall on holiday. I have now found the video of the trip and will put it onto DVD and give him a copy. So many relatives in this video who are no longer with us. Also need to get him some copies of Jethro DVD’s as his mother dated this famous English comedian and he mentions their family in some of his joke stories which are very funny. Darren has not seen them so I am sure he will have a laugh and its something he can tell his friends about. During this Cornish trip, we stayed in an old holiday cottage which used to be my great grandmothers home. Every night at 11 am, we would be in bed and hear a knocking noise coming from the middle bedroom. Same noise every night, same time. When we mentioned this to one of our great aunties, she said that noise came from Jacks old bedroom and started after he died. Then my great uncle Derek proceeded to tell us about the day Uncle Jack went out hunting and managed to shoot himself in the stomach with a shotgun. How he managed to do this is anyone’s guess. He was apparently involved in a love triangle which went wrong. Derek found him still alive and brought him back to the cottage and he died in his room the same day. My cousin Paul who was listening then told us that when he was 10, he was in the cottage and was waking up the stairs and saw uncle jack at the top looking down at him. Some of the family have been in a paranormal investigation team for a few years now so if the cottage is still used as a holiday home, we may book it out for a week to see if uncle jack is still there.

Not much else to talk about this week. I watched South Park on MTV the other night while my mother was staying over. She is very religious and never swears. It was the episode where Cartman gets tourettes. I have never seen my mother laugh so much. She just could not breath it was so funny. Talking about mum. She is writing a book on her life and he travels around Canada (she’s Canadian) and talks about each of the many towns across the country. When it’s finished, I will take a few trips out there to visit these places she talks about and will make a mini travel documentary.

Also watch the film Control which was about the life of Ian Curtis in the band Joy Division. He killed himself in 1980 aged 23. It’s a really moving and wonderful film, even though it’s sad. It was shot in black and white which made it feel more authentic. Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SaSosKEu4U

Some good TV on at the moment. Journey man, Lost, Reaper (Kevin Smith!), Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes.

Busy start to Jan 2008

Busy week

It’s been a very busy week working on iDumpPro. Album art now imports to the 2007 Nano and Classic iPods which looks nice with the cover flow. Interesting bug though…. These iPods will display a cover from another album sometimes if the album cover is missing. It’s a shitty firmware bug which I hope apple will fix in future.

I will create a tool in the next few weeks which will focus just on adding covert art to iPods; Nano, video and classics. Fixed a lot of bugs in version 2.3.0 and hope it will run more stable now.

Work at the Bank has been interesting too. Spent some time working on a new project called Turquoise which is a new trading system for 10 large banks in Europe. Also working on systems in Europe and Egypt for set-up and security lock down.

Another family member died on Sunday 13^th Jan, he will be sadly missed. Without his encouragement I would not ended up in the computer industry. My fondest memories were looking through his collection of computer magazines and playing with an assortment of circuit boards. He amazed me at an early age when he built a computer from a kit (UK101), and then I knew what I wanted to do. He died at the young age of 61. This week we were going to put our grandmothers ashes into the ground so two sad events coming up.

Films watched this week were: Rise of the foot soldiers which is a British gangster film set in the 80’s/90’s. I used to live near the places which were in the story so it brought back memories. Also, watched American Dreamz with Hugh Grant, 300 which was too weird and some comedy with Al Murry (great British name).

On the technology front, I’m looking to getting a ThinkPad X61 tablet instead of an HTC Shift. I feel I need to be able to use it for programming as well as making notes. Also the Shift is still not available to buy. I have an NEC T400 tablet but it really sucks and is slow. If you use one, you have to have a keyboard too.

Andie left for a long drive from Sydney to Adelaide in Australia where he will work for a while before moving back to Sydney. I will probably pop out there this year and take my daughter/wife for the trip. We may do some .net coding for a couple of companies but will wait and see.