06 Sep 12 Necessary Evils
Work and Rain. Who wants them? We need both of them.
We have to work, not only to earn money to pay our way in the world, but to give a service or product to our fellow-men. Think about it, if we were all idle rich, who would make the stuff we need, grow our food, and give us all the services we expect with our contemporary living style?
Same goes for rain really. It’s a pain in the butt when you plan a day out after two weeks at work, and then it rains all darn day. Still, we’d not live in a green and pleasant land without it.
I’ve got two weeks vacation time in September, and of course, I’m hoping that the weather is good enough to be able to indulge in some outdoor activities – that it’s not too cold, and not too wet!
Still, if it isn’t I’ll have to make the best of what’s on offer. We can’t change the weather yet – which is probably a good thing, as I’m sure we’d manage to screw that up big time!
Anyway, next time it rains on your day off, just remember you’re lucky to live in a place where there’s usually enough rain, and you’re lucky to have a job that you can have a day off from!
Have a good one!
Tags: big time, contemporary living, fellow men, job, living style, money, necessary evils, pain in the butt, rain, vacation time, weather
15 Sep 08 Best Buy Gets Napster
I read this five minutes after I called Napster to cancel my subscription. It wouldn’t have influenced my decision in any way, even though I don’t have a great deal of regard for Best Buy.
When I first got an MP3 player, I thought it would be a good idea. $14.99 gave me access to a whole lot of music, and I didn’t have to fork out 99 cents a tune, like iTunes. Anyway, iTunes is no use for me, as I don’t have and don’t have any plans to buy an iPod. My little Sandisk mp240 was only $38.99 and does me fine.
Another reason for cancelling Napster was that DRM sucks. I knew that already, the same as most of you surely do, but I thought I’d give it a try anyway. I didn’t really build up much of a Napster library anyway, so the few dozen tunes that will now cease to work aren’t going to cause me to lose any sleep.
It was a pain in the butt playing DRM music on the computers anyway. You can use up to three on an account, but I dislike Windows Media Player, preferring Winamp, which didn’t like playing the Napster stuff, and I use linux machines for the most part anyhow.
I’ve already bought some non DRM music from Amazon, which is a far better proposition, as I can do whatever I want with them, including playing them on any of the computers in the home; the Sandisk, or my Blackberry. The Blackberry is really very useful, as I can get reasonable quality sound via a pair of Motorola HT820 Bluetooth Headphones, and I can also use it as an audio source in the car, as my car audio is AD2P equipped as well. The Blackberry isn’t DRM capable though, and that was the final reason for cancelling the Napster subscription.
Tags: amazon, audio source, best buy, blackberry, bluetooth headphones, car audio, five minutes, motorola, motorola ht820, motorola ht820 bluetooth, mp3 player, napster, napster library, pain in the butt, quality sound, regard, sandisk, tunes, whole lot, windows media player
03 Apr 08 Behind The Scenes
I’m not usually one for posting much on here about the cogs and gears behind the blog, but I did post a little about the new WordPress 2.5 and some issues that I found, because I know many of you also use WordPress yourself.
Of course, like anything in life, there is always stuff to do backstage.
Adding some new cool widget to hopefully enhance your visits here for example, and also making sure that everything is kept as up to date as possible to minimize security breaches, and other bugs.
It’s much the same with web sites in general, which is something I spend a large part of my day working on. Getting that web page to look ‘just right’ can take some hours of tinkering and fine tuning at times. Of course, we all know that everyone else’s job is much more exciting and glamorous than ours don’t we?
Take myself. I told so often how ‘cool’ web design is. How wonderful to work from home, and how great to have your own business.
Well, yes. web design can be cool sometimes of course. It can at times be a huge pain the butt. Yes, it’s great to get to work from home; like many people that go out to work each day, it was something I always wanted to be able to do, and by and large I don’t dislike it at all. I don’t think I’m an unsociable type, but I do work more productively on my own, and I don’t need to get a fix of the office politics or gossip, that I’ve heard some home workers mention that they miss.
Having you r own business is great too, but, at least with a small business, you’re often the CEO, CFO, secretary, tea-boy, mailroom attendant, and worker all rolled into one. You don’t have a boss anymore do you? Well kinda sorta – you have numerous clients instead, who all think they ARE your boss (and in a way they are). It can be a real art juggling between them, and letting them think they are your #1 priority at all times. Like web design itself, some of those clients can be a huge pain in the butt too. The ones that need your expertise, but still know how to do everything they’ve hired you for, better than you do.
Count ten, smile sweetly. Remember, you only have to meet them from time to time. Pity the poor souls in the office that have to put up with them all day from 9-5.
Working from home you can be a slob if you want. You can drink coffee at your desk, or eat pizza while you work. Actually I do tend to do the former, as I’m a bit of a coffee-holic but not the former, as it does mess up the keyboard, and I’m not a pizza lover myself anyway.
Some friends are convinced I sit at home all day looking at dodgy web sites, soliciting strange women online, and drinking myself silly. I wish. (Ouch, no not really, dear).
I have a four o’clock rule.
“Go wild after four?”. said one.
“Yeah, 4am”, said another, joining in rapidly to disparage my good name.
Well, not quite. I like a beer after work sometimes. So to make sure it is after work, my rule is no beer before four on a workday. You see, once I sit back in the chair with that cold beer, I don’t want to get back at the keyboard again.
Well ok, sometimes. Like now. It’s 11.15pm, I have a cold beer on the desk here while I write this, but I have no intention of doing any more work until tomorrow morning at 8am.
So, dear readers, with that, I really will kick back, and enjoy this ice-cold brew, and bid you all goodnight.
Tags: boss, ceo, cfo, cogs, cool web design, eve, gears, gossip, mailroom, office politics, own business, pain in the butt, priority, real art, security breaches, small business, web page, widget
