December 2004 Entries
Ok, so I'm a chain-blog whore...but I'm about to go off on holiday for two weeks so I can ignore the abuse :-) I saw this first here
Three names you go by
Scott
Big Scott
Big Yin
Three Screennames you have
v0nx
neotrak
scottgalloway (original huh?)
Three things you like about yourself
I have an eerily long attention span when I want to
I'm very loyal to the people I love
I'm very empathic
Three things you hate / dislike about yourself
I have a tendency to be lazy
I can be self-desctructive if I'm not careful
I put on wieght 2000 times faster than I can take it off
Three parts of your heritage
Scots
Irish
Moor (prob'ly)
Three things that scare you
Madness
The Unknown
Pain
Three of your everyday essentials
Shower (I hate feeling dirty)
5 Shot Venti Americano
Seeing sunlight
Three things you are wearing right now
Nike Air-Force One Baseball boots
Black cotton socks (I only ever wear one type of sock - no 'finding the pair' issues :-))
Facial moisturiser (total big girl - but my skin cracks if I don't which HURTS!)
Three of your favorite bands/artists (at the moment):
The Killers
Keane
BabyShambles
Three of your favourite songs at the moment
Really hard one this!
SetrioGram - Walkie Talkie Man (from the iPod ad, but great for waking you up)
WolfMan ft. Pete Docherty - For Lovers
Three new things you want to try in the next 12 months:
Drive my own car (just learning - I know, 31 and just learning, pitiful...)
Really fall in love
Get an MVP (I won't but I'd love to try it :-))
Three things you want in a relationship (love is a given):
To totally and unequivacally trust someone
...that's all I'd need
Two truths and a lie:
Politics matters
Talk to old people more...they have real wisdom
The only thing which really matters are the ones you love
Three physical things about the opposite sex (or same) that appeal to you:
Great bum (round, firm...)
Intelligent eyes
Smart
Three things you just can’t do:
Lose weight and keep it off
Play a musical instrument
Talk to the stupid
Three of your favorite hobbies:
Reading
Walking
Learning
Three things you want to do really badly right now:
Have a glass of lovely cold water
Go home
Be happy
Three careers you’re considering:
Social Worker
Barman
Writer
Three places you want to go on vacation:
Norway
Mauritius
India
Three kids names:
Jason
Barry
Joe
Three things you want to do before you die:
Get Married
Have Kids
Become Immortal
That's is, see you all in 2005!
OK, so as usual my wading in to an issue with a slightly off-tangent comment has got adverse reactions (I can't link to the comment on
Geoff's blog right now as
DotnetJunkies blogs are broken...again...). What I was trying to say is that in it's current form I do think IE has reached the end of it's useful life (it has really been unchanged for more than 5 years remember!) - as a pure software product. In terms of usability, yes the competition do have a HUGE hurdle to overcome - not the least of which is the fact that it's bundled with the OS in the first place.
Firefox is a great browser and those guys are making great leaps in their public visibility and awareness...but chances are they will never truly reach the average user. My dearest wish is the Internet Explorer does evolve, it really needs to improve it's image in terms of spyware, security and a bunch of other stuff (which admittedly the average home user doesn't give a stuff about).
Now, I'm not saying that IE as it stands is a terribly insecure environment, with XP SP2 that just isn't true and IE is really pretty good nowadays in that respect - just most average users percieve it that way. So Internet Explorer, I'm sorry you were my true love for a long time...it's just that a prettier trendier model turned up, but there's still hope for you! All I want is for IE to be standards compliant and enable me to work the way I want without being paranoid about BHOs or crazy ActiveX controls doing wierd stuff on my machine, let me have decent tabbed browsing (i.e., non hacked and not crashing every 10 minutes), useful extensions, nice themes (ooh...you could even support Firefox themes!) and stop crashing so often (since it is more integrated into the OS - for me IE crashing tends to mean explorer dying too - not good!) - then I'll be right back on board.
My reason for supporting Firefox so vehemently (even to the extent of parting with my
hard earned cash) is partly because I think it's a great browser - and one that I WANT to use, and partly because competition seems to force MS to innovate - so PLEASE Microsoft, make IE good enough for me to want to use again!
Been playing with the new MSN Search toolbar, it is VERY nice however at work I use Windows Server 2003 as my desktop machine (need it for some dev work). Well, it turns out that it is possible to do this - as seen (of all places) Slashdot - in short you just exctract the exe then use this command:
msiexec /i MsnToolbarSuite.msi TBSDEVCODE=1, seems just fine after that!
Oh, one other thing, to turn off the annoying buttons (which just take up screen real estate for me) go to the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSN Apps\DB than add a DWORD value called 'Buttons' with the value 1, turn off the toolbar then back on - buttons are gone!
Ok, here’s the story…In October I saw a posting on Darren Jefford’s blog – saying that the team he works on are looking for some new people. Well, I applied…passed both telephone screens and was due to head down to MS Reading for a face-to-face interview. Problem is that it would involve relocating to Reading (I currently live in Edinburgh and all my family are about 60 miles away) – at first I hadn’t considered this a problem but the more I thought about it and talked to my family, the more of a problem this seemed – right now there’s no way I can relocate that far away.
I’ve just talked to the MS recruiter and told her I was withdrawing my application.
I honestly feel like I’ve thrown away my last chance at a dream job – it was just the ideal fit for my interests, working style…everything…apart from location.
I’m so depressed.
I am still around, just taking a break from posting for a while - no real excuse other than having nothing going on I feel is worth posting... Currently sitting in bed with a head cold (you know the thing, mucus filled, searing sinus pain etc...) trying to work out what it's safe for me to use (being diabetic I'm not meant to use decongestants...which makes the whole experience much more pleasant!). Anyway, I'm currently reading Managed DirectX 9- Graphics and Game Programming by Tom Miller (US) which is an amazingly good introduction to what is really a whole new world for most web oriented developers. Also plan to re-watch the .NET Show Tom Miller was on...exciting day planned! (Cold medication permitting, I'll probably fall asleep in 10 minutes)