2019-09-20:

Fri:

As expected not much accomplished today, but I did manage in between Joe's goodbye lunch to finish portal, the portal security test cases, load the office depot tablet twice to get the upgrade tests out of the way, and do a little testing of it. Nice. Still not the 5.2 testing we're supposed to be doing this week, but what can you do? Adnan was testing staples and Giuseppe was mucking about with tablets so good on us.

Lunch was excellent, as usual at Amore. Had the pizza of that name, so tasty. 

Otherwise, yup, Joe is gone and he won't be replaced until October at the earliest according to Bob, who by the way is on vacation for the next week. What a time to be alive.

Went to the bank, did the shopping, and saw my parents. Held two of their fur babies though not for long, and came back here. 

Checked sites, did not play borderlands 3 because it won't come until Tuesday (so much for my prediction they would ship it *to arrive* on launch day because they must have had units far in advance of the date but nooooooooo) so I worked on the tool so I don't have to use the stupid Xerox one.

At least, I was working on it. Then livecode hung (doing nothing but working with a button and a single text field I might add) and I forced it to quit believing I had just saved it moments ago. Nope. So all my work was wiped out. Thanks guys. Great product as always. I'll go back to it tomorrow when I'm not disgusted with you. At least, as much, I mean.

So I worked on the paragon database instead because I remembered wanting to fix/add a feature to the magic book. The line would always get messed up when it "found" the spell I was looking for so I went to investigate that. 

It totally crashed just by me clicking the mouse.

This is a fantastic product. How has it gotten so buggy?

Close to a solution? Use textChanged instead of keyUp?

Crashed again! Lovely.

I have a "solution" but it's a bludgeon, not a scalpel. Maybe I can think of something else later. Sigh.

Sat:

Left the house at 8:40 to get rid of that carload of stuff, got back at 10:00. So much for getting there early. Sheesh. So many tube TVs. When are we ever going to be free of them? 

Got back to work on the tool. 

Figured out what was making it crash all the time, thanks to a forum post. Breakpoints. Yeah, you know, the thing that help you debug your code? Don't use them, it doesn't crash anymore. Sweet. Always glad to do work I've already done. Always.

Made some progress though. Ate lunch. Then cut the back lawn because it's going to rain possibly tomorrow. 

Then back to work on the tool.

Read some comics, ate dinner. Made some calls. Why so many calls today? I have a printer setup tomorrow, Ellen is calling me back, and I have a job for Tuesday as well. I'm getting my car inspected after work Monday.

Got further on the tool. Tip toeing around breakpoints is really annoying. It's been like a month since this version came out, why hasn't this been patched yet?

Watched a movie. CRUD I should have invited my parents over! After Sean and I texted about him playing Borderlands without me, I next should have asked him "and will you be playing without me" to which he no doubt would have replied "yes" and I could have invited them. But no, I only thought of it hours after the fact. What is wrong with me!

Don't answer that.

Tried to play Halo with Sean, no dice again. What's going on? Gears didn't even work, it wouldn't load at all. Are they prioritizing Borderlands traffic? Do they have only one server? It doesn't make sense.

Watched the rest of the movie instead.

Sun:

Got back to work on the tool.

Got it to generate the report, load, save, and moments after waking up I was like, wait, if I just save and load it as an csv I can just build a file that way, far easier than using the tool. Then just load it into the tool, and generate the report. The format's a little strange because of the separator characters I use but I'm the only one really using it anyway. Though Adnan does use my reliability tool! Sweet. A day and a half of work and I have at least the skeleton of something so I don't have to fight with the stupid xerox tool. Mind you the constraint feature is currently not implemented so it's not 100% done, honestly I'm not sure how to make that work at the moment but that's enough of that!

And just in time for my 11:00 which I almost forgot about, too. Whoops. 

Made it there on time, set the printer up. Love setting up HP printers twice. Once to set them up, and then another time. To set them up. Don't ask, HP has gone off the rails.

Came back, checked my sites, watched the rest of the "complete history of borderlands" because Sean said stuff happened in the games I hadn't played. So now I know.

Rained. (I didn't have anything to do with it)

Put more comics into the inventory program. Cleaned up around the stove downstairs, now it's all neat down there again. No boxes nearby and the floor is clean.

Did last months paper work. Ate dinner.

One call today. I told her to change her Facebook password, as her Facebook messenger "was hacked." whatever that means.

Mon:

Started the day putting the values into the spreadsheet I would use to generate the report using the tool. Had the meeting, Gina was about 12 minutes late. It's just the three of us now, it's our first week with Joe gone. Hope he's enjoying his new place, the traitor.

Then back to it. Turns out the PC version of LiveCode crashes if you use breakpoints as well, it's not just a Mac thing. Who would have guessed?

Anyway, fixed a minor bug and generated the report in all its glory. I think I need two constraints, but you don't want to hear about that.

Went to test office depot. Saw some already fixed bugs but nothing new. Got through copy at about 2:00 and went to test document conversion. Whoops, the server is down so that's totally out.

I cleaned up the table behind me a little (throwing out some dead mice… the computer kind, he didn't actually have real mice there) and then went on to Print from USB. We'll see if I can go back to OD tomorrow.

Went to get the car inspected. Turned out I made the appointment with the wrong place. Why do you have two stores *on the same road*???? But he said he could do it in about an hour if I wanted to stay. I did.

Saw a woman I often see in the halls sitting there. Small world? After all? 

One hour was two, but I made it out. Wipers are expensive, by the way. He needed to check the back seat belt buckles, something the other place never bothered with. Given the piece of wood over the whole thing and all the crap in the back. I dug them out to show him they worked. They should, they've never been used.

Anyway, $90 later and I was home.

Did the usual at home stuff. Nothing too exciting there, just getting ready for another day in paradise.

It's going to be in the 80s by the end of the week.

Halo worked again! got through 3, only two more games to go, but it'll be some time because Borderlands.

Tues:

Writing this Wednesday, as I just did not get a chance to do anything Tuesday night. Allow me to explain.

The day starts fine, Worked on the tool uselessly, Duh. I was trying to get rid of the $ I used at the end of the string, not realizing I needed that because something else may go at the end of the end of the string in the future. The other type of constraint. Whoops. Rolled it back.

Finished up DCE as it worked again for office depot. GIF doesn’t work but I guess that’s a known issue. I worked on the tool some more because sitting there hitting preview again and again was not all that taxing.

Ate lunch.

Worked on the tool while printing. Because hitting print again and again… You get the idea.

Got the first restriction in, the second is going to be a problem.

No more USB, thanks for sending the list Bob. See, originally he was all “test everything all over again” but then he and Giuseppe discussed not doing that, but neither one bothered to share with the class the email that said “here is what we’re actually going to do.” Thanks to the both of you.

Went to "security" instead, oh look *nothing has changed in the last two weeks*

Then went to boot up, same. This contest test churn of the same things over and over again is pointless.

Left, went home to install borderlands. Ironically the UPS truck was in front of my house as I pulled in.

Got that in, left again. Hoped it would reduce my time later when I actually got home. Went to see about some speakers being off and a laptop with 2 antivirus programs running. Gee, you think that’s why it’s running so slowly? You would think the two biggest antivirus companies would check for the other product and, you know, not install if it found the other one there. But no, it just merrily installs and pulls your performance into the toilet. Two hours I was there, I hate windows. Just untangling the mess under to desk to pull the speakers out took me fifteen minutes I swear. How can you live like that?

Then to book guy, he couldn't get my directions to hit return and log in. When we were messing with passwords I had to put a password on his machine to open the keychain (why, apple? Why?) I took the password off, and even though auto login was still his name, it didn’t work. This is what I would call a bug. Of course he claims not to hear over the phone so I couldn’t just convey the simple act of *hitting return* to get into his machine. And then when I got there he’s all “oh, I didn’t think you were coming” because it was 6:30. I’m doing you a favor and coming all the way out there, *after* doing another job, and you’re giving me sass old timer? Really? Took care of a couple of other things. Didn’t change him, it was sort of my “fault.”

Finally got home around 7:00. 

Ate, watched the intro and walked around the intro area so I at least had a character to play.

Talked to a guy about upgrades, going over there Sunday. 

Ellen- she was fine.

Didn't reach one.

Got ready for bed and finally did borderlands with Sean. Took some doing because again network issues or something? But I could hear Mizzy and she had no lag, but Sean was cutting out like crazy and was totally laggy but they’re on the same connection? So figure that one out! No, go on, I dare you!

Got to level 7, it’s fun. I mean it’s borderlands, it was going to be fun with a 90% probability, they’ve made several games now the formula is quite established.

Wed:

Fixed a few bugs in the tool and went back to finish Boot up and Recovery.

Finished that, got another new OS for the tablet because we are just blazing over there. Plus a new version of the software? Be still my beating heart. Installed both of those, went fine, and looked into my bugs. I have two people's worth of bugs to look out for now, sweet. I reproduced one of Joe's, took a picture and went to lunch. Giuseppe couldn't reproduce it, closed it, but I didn't know that and reopened it when I got back from lunch. Ha, dueling bug reports. Maybe you should, I don't know, let me verify them from now on, jose.

Picked another service, some of the things in the list like screen saver are just stupid. They're not using our screen saver, brah! 

Came back here, looked through my guns in borderlands and shot some stuff with them, narrowed the list down. Killed some stuff, got some swanky new guns and leveled up, had to go through the whole process again. Their interface doesn't make it easy.

Got ready for tomorrow, checked sites, the usual. Finally got ahold of that lady, I'm going over there tomorrow. Dentist guy called, wanted Saturday. Too bad, sucker. I'm gonna hate going over there but at least I get to put it off until Monday, as he "had meetings" sunday. Who has meetings on Sunday? And aren't you out of the dental thing and the eye care thing? Who are you meeting with anyway that goes on all freaking… you know what, I don't care. I don't have to waste my Sunday trying to figure out what bizarre thing you have come up with wanting to do next, just my Monday evening which maybe isn't any better?

Have a feeling no Borderlands tonight, but I may just wander around a bit.

I did, found some nice stuff actually.

Thurs:

More of the same, meaning I get to do work I've already done once again.

Learned the printer I used had been used for some other experiment some time ago in history and never returned to the "proper" level so my testing wasn't "valid" because somehow the tablet software depends on the printer software. (Hint: it doesn't.) 

So we reloaded them, or at least started to, this was late in the day.

Otherwise I powered through test cases I had done just two release ago, because things are really going to change in that time. I wrote up some things I had passed before, certain messages on the screen that aren't *exactly* what the spec says, because hey I want Gina to know I'm thinking of her and if I didn't she would be lonely with nothing to do. The point gets across, with the current messages I mean, not making more work for Gina, but you want to make me do this, you're gonna get the must pedantic bugs I can possibly dream up.

So yeah, major fun all day long. 

Went to my after work job, set up that wireless extender I got from the lady some months ago, got the printer working again, ran mbam for a few seconds. (I love SSDs, I really do)

Came back, it was 6:00 (I leave work at 4:00) and ate dinner, sites, the usual.

4 calls today? What are you trying to kill me? I can't do Saturday and I really would rather not work Sunday either! Monday is booked, Wednesday I'm taking Squeaker in I'm only one man!

Anyway, didn't reach one, one said she wouldn't be there anyway, I talked a lady through (again) downloading the printer driver (it was the lady I sold the all-in-one to apparently it must have gone to sleep and stopped the download) and one person needs to get back to me after they see if they actually have a HD in the laptop they got from work. Good times.

Looking to the future my old manager has set up an end of summer get together with those of us that are left as Xerox apparently isn’t doing anything official this year. (We usually have a company picnic thing around this time)

So that’s at 4:00 I’ll be eating there. Before that I'll go to the bank (it's right down the street) because I got a star rebate check of $500 I would really like to deposit. Then go see my parents, then get groceries, drop them off here, then go to Sean's. 

The lady got back to me, so I have two for Sunday. A tuneup (I guess?) and installing an SSD. 

And the guy who got the laptop from work got back to me, so I'm going there to load windows after that so I have three for Sunday which has not happened in years. Let's hope it takes years more to happen again.

Back to Saturday I hope we can do the garage floor with it being the hottest weekend ever this year. It's supposed to be cool so it dries slowly. So much for that. 

Sure seems like I'm busy, huh? Wonder if I'm actually getting anywhere…

We'll find out same blog time, same blog station, next week. See you then.