Work

The biggest thing going on right now would be the new job. The job is awesome. The internet content filter is not. But alas I shouldn't be surfing the internet I should be coding. Which I am doing quite a bit of.

The company I work for, NISC, makes software for utilties and telecommunication co-ops. The team I work on has a few smaller projects for out "software suite" and the project I work on is for prediction where power outages occur in a co-op's grid. We have a current program in production and we are writing a new one using our frameworks, which is what I'm focusing on. I really have no idea what I can and can't talk about reguarding my project (probably nothing to worry about) so I won't post any details on the interwebs. Just send me an IM or email or something if you are curious. Most of the company's projects are written in Java but we do have some older systems that were coded in COBOL, as well as a few minor projects that we support that were written in VB and C++. I also here a rumor that we have some Ruby scripting floating around somewhere.

I'm really enjoying the job. Its nice not having to worry about web standards and hacking up web pages so that they work for IE(why can't we burn it?). We also have a very large framework that we use for all of our projects so I'm not having to spend really any time having to research how to create something from scratch. The first 6 weeks were really just learning the frameworks and how out apps get put together. The only problem is that I can't google for any problems or questions that I have since our frameworks aren't publically used. Luckly the people I work with are very knowledgable about the frameworks so I guess it evens out in the end.

Unfortunately this new, wonderful job hasn't left me with much free time. I work 8-5(with an hour lunch) and there's a 45min drive tacked on either side of that(our office is in Lake St. Louis). Hopefully they'll install a new video card in my machine soon so I can hook up the second monitor that they gave me.

Purchases

So I recently purchased a new monitor as a graduation gift to myself since it will be a while before I can afford a laptop(house has to come first). I went with a Samsung SyncMaster 226BW. I went with a widescreen since my desk isn't big enough for a dual setup and another single monitor setup for my bot pc. It gives me plenty of space to work with and being 22 inches makes it much better than my 17 inch CRT for viewing movies/tv. I played through HL2E1 to give the gaming a test spin and I'm happy with the way it preforms. I'll have to do some CS:S to give it a real workout, but I don't expect any problems.

I also went on a spending spree and picked up some books. I grabbed four novels and five used pc books for about $5 a piece after shipping. Four of those pc books are related to game design and scripting, and the other one is the book on the making of Doom3. I've read the first chapter so far and its pretty interesting to me. I did already read Masters of Doom and enjoyed it so this book, which is kind of picks up where the other one left off, will no doubt entertain me. Here's a list.

Novels

• 1984
• Thirteen
• Dragon and Judge
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Computer Books

• The Making of Doom3
• Game Programming Golden Rules
• Game Programming with Python, Lua, and Ruby
• Swords & Circuitry: A Designer's Guide to Computer Role-Playing Games
• Game Programming Tricks of the Trade

PCs

I've been slowly getting some work done on my PCs. Mostly Linux-y stuff. I've been playing around with using OpenBox for my window manager, and right now I have no panels so when you log in all you see if the wallpaper. Having the right-click menu is pretty nice and so far I prefer it to a start menu. If you use Openbox you have to install obmenu and you have to install it from source. It makes editing your right-click menu a thousand times easier.

I've been trying more and more to convert completely to Linux, but right now Candace is using my PC more than I am and she can't seem to live without Windows. So I've been just leaving it booted into XP and taken to playing around with my bot pc which I've set up in the corner of the room. Once we get our own place I'll get her PC setup with internet and she can use it instead.