2019-11-21:

Fri:

The most worky of the work related activities for today was getting through 50 of the remaining 100 reliability tests. Didn't really find anything new, at this point 100 jobs in if you haven't found something, you're probably not going to.
Had donuts, one for breakfast because some people just do the bare minimum, and one for lunch because dessert is an important part of every meal as well. Even breakfast, ask anyone.
Looked through the specs for the upcoming work, they just went on and on. I finally gave up in disgust knowing I would have to spend actual time actually studying the things to write the stupid test cases so I had the sense of it I wanted (sense of doom?) and that was enough for the moment. Louis was talking about it, and how the whole thing was probably a bad idea given various factors I won't go into here.
Not going to be fun?
Usual after work stuff, went to the bank last as is the new way of going about things.
Saw my parents and got my hair cut.
Ran game, only got through the combat because they insisted on attacking with only half their forces again and again. What? I mean they attacked with 2 of 4 people, saw that wasn't going to work, then attacked with a slightly different set of 2 of 4 people. I basically didn't activate all their powers so the split group had a chance, but in exchange I made them run away instead of fighting to the death. So they'll beeeee baaaaaacccccck! I don't know why they just didn't walk over to them, I told them again and again the one guy felt them not moving, so they had plenty of time. I don't know what they were thinking.

Sat:
Did things from the list:
Called the lady about the laptop, no answer.
Took new insurance pictures. My last ones were from 2013 if you can believe it, and I bet you can because you know I'm fairly lazy like that.
Set up the ethernet jacks, only had the one issue. I had "tested" it and found the lights lighting up so I stuck it to the wall and screwed it in. Came to find out because the little switch I have everything plugging into is in an awkward place I was seeing the lights next to the lights I thought I was looking at, and the jack didn't actually work. Whoops. So I had to yank them out, cut them off, and redo the wiring while the box was stuck to the wall. At least it was in a fairly easy to access location. The other two went fine, and now I have nice, clean looking, real, ethernet jacks where the cables come up from the basement. Not exactly an in wall installation but it's nicer than it was. I didn't even need any of the cable I bought, I just snipped the cable near the wall, put the jack on the one end, a connector on the other, and it was fine. The bedroom one, the one that was dropping down from gigabit to 100mb (because it was taped together, literately) wasn't using the cable I had thought. I thought it was a black one with a funny end on it, but it wasn't. It was sort of a wall jack I used in place of a coupler? Anyway, it's not flopping around on the floor any more and the correct speed is listed (not that I transfer that many files between the mac and the pc) so it's all good.
Lunch.
Videos and sites.
Bit of Christmas shopping, don't have the full list from my parents yet. I got it later, so I'll finish that up tomorrow.
Bit of cleaning.
Watched a movie.
Bit of game playing.
Then borderlands with Sean and Mizzy.

Sun:
Got off to a good stork with finishing my shopping at last. Is the internet not the greatest invention? It is, don't you dare say it isn't.
More cleaning.
But mostly reading, my goodness the MOR is a long story. With a cat on my lap. Yup, it was a very nice sunday, just relaxing with a (virtual) book and a kitty.
Watched the first episode of Rick and Morty season 4.
Two calls, one guy who had figured it out himself and laptop lady. She wanted to know about just replacing the keyboard, which usually would be no problem. Usually it's a dell or an HP and you can get keyboards for them fairly easily. But this one... is a Sony. And apparently a really old Sony? Because the keyboards I found were really expensive, didn't look the same from one site to another despite both saying they were for that model, and one was $200? Huh? You know I can get a whole laptop for that, right? I did find one for about $60. Totally not worth it. Not for such an obviously old machine.
And more reading.

Turned out Sean wanted to do Borderlands at 10:00, but I was already halfway to bed by that time and didn't see the message. Ah well, time for that another day. The last week before Thanksgiving!

Mon:

Here's a question for you. What change will be made to the world if there is a yes or no answer to the question "does the old code we're throwing away show symptom X?" Well, I don't have an answer but I got to ask the question again and again today. After the meeting I was assigned the "oh so important" task of going through the list of Staples bugs he had generated (some already "closed- won't fix" by the way) to see if they happened on the old code Staples has already abandoned. What was the point? What changes? You can't go look in the old code to see how it worked before, it's completely different. It's pointless.

But what I most loved was the shotgun approach taken in making the list. Some had nothing to do with the old software because it didn't work the same way as the old software did. Some, as above, were already closed meaning he didn't even tell Staples about them. It was so stupid.

Oh, and the guy who asked is out of town until the 22nd but he needed those answers by tomorrow, by golly! Oh really?

Aside from that I looked over the specs for the new project and wrote my questions down. That took the rest of the day. I literally finished just as it was time to go. I got four new test case templates done, basically just putting the spec lines into the database so test cases could be written. A shocking amount is future which is rather, uh, disturbing. Otherwise we're in good shape I guess.

Then out to see the lady down the street. Her machine was fine, her biggest complaint was that the built in mail on Win10 was terrible. And to be fair... it is. I switched her to thunderbird.

Also went out to the goodwill place, but they didn't really have anything exciting for me. Ah well, maybe next week.

Back here I checked sites, ate dinner, the usual.

Spent 20 minutes trying to get an oldster to type his (son's) email and netflix password... into the netflix app. He couldn't manage it. So now I have to drive 40 minutes there and back to type a username and password. Why? Why do I have to drive for nearly an hour to type something into two fields? It just doesn't seem like a worthwhile use of resources or time or effort. Just type the stupid thing into the fields. They are right there. Touch them, keys come up, touch them, then hit login. Why is this so hard for you?

Got ready for bed.

Tues:

Working on test cases for the new project. I really didn't want to go too crazy with it because I don't know exactly how it works or even if everything from the "big" kiosk will be implemented by the "little" kiosk so anything I did could easily be thrown out the window. Many questions were generated which I sent to Bob at the end of the day.Got copy and print from mobile test cases done, don't know if other services actually exist or what. Bob didn't know. But I can expect those to exist. We had a meeting about what we were doing tomorrow, which made me late out the door, and thus, to netflix guy. I even did the smart thing and stopped at home, in case he called to say he had called his son for the password and gotten it straightened out. No such luck.

Got new machines in, some nice features coming up. They are on the other side of the wall in my area, because they are 220v machines for some bizarre reason and that's where we have those plugs.

Went over to put in the man's password, just as I expected. For his facebook account too. At least he had them written down... correctly. So that was a one minute job. Glad my horse didn't throw a shoe getting over there.

Back here took delivery of one christmas gift, ate dinner, sites, watched episode 2, did some reading, and played Borderlands.

Wed:

Helped out most of the day with the 45 tablets we took delivery of. Just turning them on, turning them off, checking the SD card slot. There was no software loaded so it was really just a minor test. Many had issues with encryption for some reason, were they not, I don't know, looked at before shipping? Two (or three?) had SD card slot problems, wouldn't read a card. One had the wrong OS loaded, and one had a power button that wouldn't work. Fantastic quality control there.

Otherwise, not much exciting. New version I'll load tomorrow to do the payment app test with. (The new version will save me some time loading and unloading the tablet)

No after work job so I came right home. Did the usual stuff, which now includes Borderlands. Not yet off Eden-6.

Thurs:

Here's a fun story to share. Imagine a team lunch has been scheduled but one of your team members is missing, because they have taken their son to a doctor's appointment. You go to ask the other member of your team if they are going to the lunch. They say no. Do you go to the lunch?

Of course, if you are me, you know the answer to this question and if you do not, you have not been reading this blog for long enough you must go back to the beginning and start again. I probably should have gone anyway but what's the point of a team lunch when none of your team is actually going to be there?

So what dominated today? Upgrading the software again and again after downgrading it. Took as long per repetition as I expected, so it was quite a lengthy process. I did manage to recreate the issue though. So that's good. Added many notes about the process as well.

After that I went ahead with verifying my resolved bugs. I also watched some videos about the new kiosk solution and got a few of my questions answered. It's going to be a fairly big test effort I hope we can manage with... uh... one person?

Came back, ate my late lunch, and did the usual stuff. Ellen wants me to come over and plug in a power cord for her. It's a power cord, I think you can manage it. And dentist guy insists his google calendar isn't "syncing." I don't think it syncs, it's basically just one calendar in multiple places. I'm pretty sure.

Also the crappy Sony finally got dropped off and my goodness the design on that machine is the worst. The keyboard, secured by no less than 10 screws by the way, sits under the plastic shell so you have to take the whole top off to get at it. Plus cables are routed very strangely which is going to be a real treat to put back together. I did find one for less than $60 once I had the real number. Still not worth it. Such a terrible design.

So what does the future hold? Tomorrow I don't know what I'll do at work, the old test effort is over and the new test effort is still some ways away. But I'll find something, for sure. Otherwise getting cat food and litter for my little guys, dropping stuff off at my parent's house, shopping, and heading to Sean's to start our new adventure. I have been promised delicious mac & cheese.

Saturday I have to go click the mouse on a button that says backup, and then plug an iPad in and click the mouse on the "restore from backup" option. This activity being too much for the man. Not sure what else, at this time, I'll be doing. Sunday...

Make a pie

Finish my paperwork from last month

The usual stuff like cleaning

Too early to put the tree up, that will be next week. Not sure apart from that.

By the time you read the next entry, Thanksgiving will be over and the True Season will begin. There's less than 40 days left in the year. Enjoy the next 7 and I'll see you then.