So. After a good period of solid work, DowntownNorfolk.org is complete!
It feels good saying that after a decent amount of time spent working on this site, I never grew tired of it. I like all (ok, most) of the sites I’ve built, but most sites grow tiring in the latter stages of development. Through a magical mix of beautiful design, great concepts, and good a good client, I never found myself dreading to work on dnc. That has to count for something.
Ok. So my delimma.
I really like working in ubuntu. Linux really, but ubuntu is my favorite at this point. I like it because I love the workflow. All of my Mac friends say they like OSX because things just seem right to them, and things feel like they are right where they should be. I never really understood what they meant before using modern linux. In windows, I know where everything I need is, because I know windows inside and out. In linux though, I didn’t have to learn alot, I just figured it out for the most part because its that easy. Of course there is a learning curve still, but thats to be expected.
Part of it, as much as I hate to admit it, and as much as I don’t think ideology should play the dominant role in any software choice, is the idea and community behind the open-source movement.
I also like the ‘extras’. Some of the old hats will say that all of the new beryl/compiz stuff is distracting or counter productive. I agree that some of the stuff is or can be a distraction. I also think that alot of it has helped linux in its easy of use. I never really seen the point of or even liked multiple desktops before the ‘cube’. The cube though, turned an abstract concept and put it in spacial terms. I understand that “x program is to my right” or “y program is on the opposite side.” It’s easier for me that way, and it helps me make use of that particular feature. Some of the newer flashier “toys” are also helpful to me. The ability to set animations for all of the different window actions (minimize, maximaize, shade, etc…) is helpful because it makes more sense (to me) to give a visual cue as to what just happened. It’s those details that make me love it.
So the hard part, and the hard question for me, is should I switch at work. I got a reluctant ‘ok, if you can do it without affecting your productivity’ answer from the boss. The truth is, and the reason why I haven’t jumped on that opportunity, is that I’m not entirely sure that it won’t affect my productivity. I know Photoshop will work in wine, but I’ve had some issues in the past with photoshop cs2 through wine…slowness and bugginess. Now, I don’t actually design in photoshop, but I am expected to tear down and build sites from PSD comps…and the gimp, for as hard as it tries, seems to destroy even mildy complicated psds. Photoshop is my last big hangup. I can dream that one day adobe will realize the usefullness of photoshop on linux…but I don’t think thats going to happen soon. Dual booting is, of course, and option, but not a viable one…that really hurts productivity when in the middle of something, wham…reboot. So that’s not going to be my final answer either. I know that if I do switch, it will be ubuntu. I have such an understanding of the OS that I feel comfortable enough with it to work with it day in and day out.
I may even end up buying a HD on my own dime to throw in my box to completely eliminate (except for the bootloader) and cross-contamination as it were…the chance for my linux side to hose my windows side. That’s the least of my concerns though…
I think, in the end, I will be on linux. The question is when, and more importantly, how well will the software situation work out.
So the Wii has officially been in the office for over a week (along with the sweet new Dell Projector to play it on!), and the Wii jokes haven’t even came close to getting old yet. For instance, a year ago, if I told someone I spent 30 minutes today playing with my Boss’s Wii, you would probably be thinking that I’m about to get a hell of a promotion. The Wii is a pun machine.
Anyways, I have to admit that even though I fall into the “hardcore gamer” group, I am drawn to this little white and blue glowy device. The fun that can be had with the launch titles is amazing, and I can’t even imaging what future releases will be like as developers become more and more adventurous with the control system. I’ve pretty much only played Wii Sports and Rayman. I want to play Zelda, but I think there is an unspoken rule that Zelda isn’t allowed at work, as it would ultimately lead to extended playing sessions ‘on the clock.’ So at this point, I’m torn between the Golf and the Bowling. Both require a level of finess that I’m not entirely sure I possess. The swinging in golf (epecially drivers) is both Amazingly perfect and mind-numbingly aggrivating. Through some strange phenomenon, though every practice swing is near perfect, every actual swing is 10% too much. Still, good times are had. Bowling, though, is as close to the real thing that any game has ever come close to getting. So real, in fact, that everyone that I have seen play it actually takes 2 or 3 steps forward on the roll, even though its not necessary. In both golf and bowling though, the one thing that amazes me is the consistency of everything. I know this comes from both software and hardware performance, but its amazing that as you start to get a feel for it, you actually learn how to move. You can do this because the game behaves exactly the same at all times. In previous motion or other sensory activated games I’ve played, results tend to vary from game to game, often resulting in arrgivation and ultimatly, a low replay value.
Lastly, the system is just ‘complete’. It seems that every facet of the whole ‘Wii experience’ has been thought of. From the Miis (yes, I have one), to the menus, to the look of the system itself. It seems to satisfy everyone. It feels like an entire package. As much as I love my 360, the games and the Dashboard feel like 2 different worlds. Even inside the Dashboard, the 360 seems to be a lot of good ideas put together poorly. The Wii though, everything just works together in a nice flow.
The only problem so far is a lack of Wii-motes and Nunchucks. We have 2, which means that golf tournaments and bowling leads to trading back and forth between wiimotes to get 4 players. But we will soon have 2 more pairs, then the circle will be complete.
Today is a day of backups.
My mission, this morning, was to sqare away our own office backup solution. We have PCs and Macs being used, and the server is an XP Pro server (for our files, internal…sites are on a dedicated remote server). Actually, everything looks to be going better than I had expected. I found (and love) SyncBack SE for the Windows Machines, and CronoSync for Macs. They both appear to work great, and the price is right at around $30 per licence for either.
Not all of the machines are setup at this point, but they will be soon. Not all of the licenses are bought either, but they will be soon. I know that backups are important, but the reasoning became batently obvious this morning.
One of our clients dropped 2 very important tables in their database. By important, I mean “mission-critical” type stuff. It was a human error problem, they were just accidently dropped. The problem being, those tables weren’t being backed up automatically with the server backups. Somehow, that got through the cracks. It wasnt on our server, so it wasn’t our responsibility, but it proves the point either way.
Check your data, make sure its backed up. As a programmer, there are few things I hate more than over-redundancy. However, in the case of backup, you can’t be too redundant. Our office files, for example, exist in 3 different places. On our computers. On the fileserver (in the office). And on an offsite drive that gets loaded up via FTP from the fileserver. You can never rule out catestrophic failures, but this way, we are padding our odds quite a bit, and we like that.
