a personal linux milestone: i now have hardware that works in linux, but not windows
the device in question is a generic linksys usb wireless card that works just fine in ubuntu, but windows refuses to let install any driver for it claiming they’re all the wrong one
best part? i’m using that wrong windows driver in linux to operate the card.
never forget that all the work paradigms that you’ve been ever taught or forced into (in case of programming, things like extreme programming or scrum) aren’t some sort of mathematically proven theorems or empirically checked models. they’re simply one guys idea of how a group should work, that happened to work in his group
if you find yourself constantly striving to match a paradigm, back up. maybe you’re not really meant to work that way. do you have something that works for you?
keep in mind though, some people really might not have a method that works, in which case anything that involves structure might be beneficial.
one random example from my own life: my email. i spent a stupid amount of time attempting to stay on top of sorting email because i was told at one point that organized email is important. i tried tags, rulesets in the hundreds, smart folders, all at the same time, and the results were dismal. best part? i never used it. i never once said to myself “oh, i need this communication from the prime minister of ukraine, let me look under “prime ministers”, tagged “ukraine” “. no, i’d just go to the search bar, click “From” and type ytymoshenko@gmail.com. ta-da.
new solution? 4 inboxes (i have 4 mail aggregating accounts), total of 2 regular folders marked “important” and “not”, and 1 smart folder. the rule for the smart folder is:
- if the email is unread, or the email is in folder important, show it.
the only folder i look at is the smart folder. all unread emails are in there and disappear after they’re read (technically, they disappear after i close the window, which i do as soon as i’m done looking at mail), unless they’re something relevant in which case i drag them to the “important” folder. once they’re solved/answered, they’re dropped in either “not”. every blue moon i drag all emails from the inboxes to the “not” bin, just in case things go bad if the inbox gets too large.
that’s really all i need from email, it works with my actual work flow, and actually uses that CPU power this machine has. i imagine this would work even better with gmail, but at work we have lolexchange so eh.
different example of this: i have a bizarre music writing method. i work in these bursts where i write and record for about 5 hours straight, in which time i like to be alone with no one listening, then when done, i leave it alone for a week while sending it to half the people on my IM list to ask for opinions on what they think of it and where it should go
somehow the conversation process is what lets me mentally decide where it needs to go. it’s silly, but songs which i don’t talk about end up piling up as minute long fragments that never went anywhere. songs i do, end up growing into actual songs. well, not immediately. they go through a bunch of cycles of this. some more than others.
(btw, apologies if you happen to be on the “hey can you tell me if this works? what do you think of the cut up trumpet loop?” and are annoyed by it. just let me know, i wont be offended)
in any case, yes, don’t get obsessed with following footsteps of others, just set a similar goal to what they had and find what manner of movement works best for you. but don’t use that as an excuse to be lazy either.
there’s some microsoft offer to sell windows 7 to students for $30, and since my email address looks rather studentlike, i briefly considered getting in on this.
i was just about to fill out the form when i suddenly remembered: i don’t have a single computer that runs windows anymore. work mac laptop, mac mini at home, and 2 old unix laptops. i guess i could upgrade my xp that runs in parallels but i’m too worried it’d blow away the rest of my partitions in the process. i only use it to test sites in obsolete IE versions anyways.
for the curious, the machines are:
- work laptop, macbook pro. i take it home though since the border between work and not-work is sorta vague in my life
- home mac mini. hulu, netflix, bluetooth keyboard that reaches the couch fine. it’s basically the cable box replacement. i just upgraded the ram on it so i should see if it can run games at all, i think i have an xbox controller hooked up to it with drivers installed. i should see what i can do with that
- circa 1999 thinkpad, running ubuntu. it can run terminal just fine, but attempting to run a modern gnome gui causes serious lag. i use it as an always on personal subversion server, and since it sits at work, to show most recent server errors from the logs in streaming format
- circa 2002 sony, running ubuntu. default home laptop, doesn’t run movies too well but is a pretty good machine otherwise. usb wireless since this was the last model laptop to not have a built in wireless card
i don’t have a gaming pc anymore. it’s fine, i don’t really have time to play games enough to justify the investment in one, and when i do game it’s usually just dwarf fortress, eve, or xbox, none of which require a omgwtfsuper pc.
besides, it’s not like there’s any space to put a gaming rig in the apartment. i’m still juggling to find a way to keep my clothes semi-organized