2023-12-14:

Fri:
Did some work today, helped Christina in doing some NTLM stuff on another product. Uh, doesn't work. We had to go borrow a machine because we don't have the exact one the customer is looking at/has. That's always a challenge, getting it set up, doing the test, putting it back.
We also looked into the color table stuff. That's a bust as we apply it through a clone file but we don't have one. We tried doing it the sneaky way with the super secret methods we know, to create a device with a clone file, but sudo doesn't exist on the machine anymore? Huh? I'm sure it did. That's odd.
So we can't test that either. Good all around.

Did more writing of course. I think I now have more chapters of the new story than the old one. Whoops.

Got cat food, did my own shopping... oh yeah the hot chocolate over there is good. No more buying milk for me.
I thought I got just chocolate milk today but it was piping hot! Weird. Did I hit the wrong button?

Back to the day. Right, saw my parents. Came back, put stuff away.
No game. Sean was feeling tired so we canceled.

Did more Swift stuff. I don't know if it's the end of the lesson or what but I got to a section 5 of 5, step 4 of 5 said to add some code and I hit the button to add the code. It gave a compiler error I don't understand and that was that. The code Apple wanted me to add has an error. And now I don't know if that's the end of the lesson or not. This is great.

It's fairly focused on views and swiftUI and clearly more geared to iOS than Mac OS. I think I might just take that youtube video about the multiple views, where I need to start anyway, and just see if I can add some code to it and get it to do what I want. If I can add a text field to the project in two views, and then save and load those views, I'll basically have what I need to do the app. The rest of the app is just saving or loading it all and putting the text in the right place after that. Sure there's some buttons I press to roll dice but that can't be that hard. Right? I guess we'll see what happens. I was not understanding all their view stuff at all. Either the difficulty spiked way up suddenly or I'm just not cut out for modern coding anymore. My goodness I miss LiveCode. No wonder they charge so much, native coding sucks! It should be getting easier, not harder! I don't get it. Computers should do more of the work and we less. But this just seems needlessly complex.

Okay, I followed what he did, of course his tutorial is 3 years old. I've gotten the window to show and it has content. But it's too small. He's got some kind of "constraint" on his button? It makes the view bigger. I can't figure out how he added this constraint because he doesn't show how he added it. He talks about what it does. At some length in fact. But how did it get there? No idea. Thanks. I downloaded the project and ran it. But it doesn't work. There are errors. This is a simple app with maybe 100 lines of code at max for the whole thing. How can it not work after only 3 years? It's bizarre. I guess I can just make the window bigger it's not like anyone but me is going to use the code but if i can't figure out something this simple, what hope do I have for doing anything else?

(hint: not much)

Going to bed. This sucks.

Sat:
But maybe it can suck less.

Thought about it last night. What about making it in pieces, as a spreadsheet? That's mostly what it is, with some additional convenience for rolling the dice. You can right click skills and it'll just put the right numbers in the dice rolling part. But I don't NEED that nessisarily. I guess. But I could this much easier by breaking it up. A spreadsheet for the static values, a text file for the notes, and Sean has a dice roller in javascript already. I could expand that, put the energy stuff in, maybe even save/load the values so I could always have them correct. Though thinking about it if it's only one or two values I can just type them in easily enough. It would just be... energy? And what else? Huh. Anyway, not nearly as convenient as having everything in one document in one app, but I need it across two platforms and multiple machines all with different versions of different OSs. I can't rely on that working anymore. It's the combat runner I'll most miss. Maybe I should work on that one, it's only one view, doesn't need to save or load (the old one didn't) so it should be simpler. But again, it would be Mac only so I couldn't use it at work. Not that I run battles there usually but sometimes I do. It's a mess. Wait, starter is only $33 a month for both platforms? Was that lowered recently? I guess that's not bad? Huh. Maybe it just seems more reasonable because I've gotten more desperate?

Took a kitty walk as there was no snow or rain, but it did rain as we were coming in. So he got at least one more before major snow.
Fixed my downspouts, I need more of those plastic ones that expand. They don't seem to move. Probably the ridges anchor them to the ground.
Too late to add that to my list?

Looked into alternate methods like javascript.

"simplified mac app development" gave me nothing. I was hoping for some kind of "app engine" you know, like there are a ton of "game engines" out there? I should not have to start from scratch every time. I made my own template in livecode for handling saving and loading and whatnot, why isn't there a built in one of these?

"mac swift document app template" was equally useless. I want a pre-made template. A project I can open up, and already have a window, and a document controller, and the saving and loading logic, and the undo logic, and the spell check set up, etc. etc. and I can start adding my variables to the document controller and UI elements and tie them together and that simply works. Not a bunch of tutorials on making a document app. Apple should have done that work for me. I don't need to reinvent the wheel opening a save dialog box and writing bits to the file. I mean come on, it's been 40 years why is this not more streamlined yet? Humm... Looked at a video done by Apple by a person that maybe shouldn't have been doing it? Non-native English speaker so she was a little hard to understand, where she made a small app that used the "document model" to help handle saving and such. No link to the code so it's tough to follow but she made it seem a bit like what I just described. Still would have liked the actual code to mess around with. Maybe I can find a sample code on the web somewhere to play around with? That isn't 2 years old so it still works?

Put the spreadsheet together. It looks very close to the old app, and only took me ~2-3 hours. Neat. We'll see how it works. Now, I can't count the time I also spend doing the dice rolling stuff, but that's for another day. That was a slog by itself.

I have to leave in an hour and a half anyway.

Left for game. It went fine, Sean prepared a wrong location based on something he thought I said? But I did not say it. So there. But he had prepared a second location and we did that. We got the plans to a laser drill which may prove useless but at least checks the location off the list. We don't have the skills to understand it, despite having a robot in the party. Because even robots can't know everything.

Gave Alyx their present!

Sun:
Thought about the game before I got up. Realized what the theme of this year was going to be and the rest fell into place quickly. I won't spoil the theme here, no, no, for all you thousands of readers I have (Hello!) you will just have to wait until after. Ha who am I kidding exactly? No one, that's who. Anyway.

Worked on nailing that down, so I'm ready in that sense. I just have to wrap everything which can be done a bit later. Get the price stickers off, that sort of thing. Still plenty of time for that.

Checked sites, did my Sunday Readings. Ate lunch.

Thought about the last gift, and came up with something. Good going, brain!

Nothing too great the rest of the day. Got ready for tomorrow of course.

3 calls. The deaf guy I didn't reach, something about his printer. Car salesman guy who wants 6:00 and I hate him for it, who wants to transfer files back to a pc he transferred file from? Why is this not making sense to me? I hate him. And how dark it will be when I have to leave. And the fact he seemingly did this once but now suddenly can't do it again? Why? And a lady down the street that said edge "wasn't responding" but I didn't reach.

Talked to someone from an email. I guess his machine is blue screening quite often. Like it couldn't get through a malwarebytes scan in safe mode! I tried the window RAM check, which it passed. Odd. He said he had his old drive, he's going to try just replacing his current one and see how it goes. If it boots he should know soon and that would in fact help narrow it down. Wow, BSOD, haven't dealt with that in awhile. And my life was much better for it, I must say. That took an hour and a half. Guh. Well, I'm ready for bed, don't know about you.

Mon:
Had an 8:30 meeting about color tables and clone files. Good stuff.
  We have another meeting about it tomorrow. It's an hour, this one was half an hour. Maybe the one for Wed can be 2 hours? We can hope.

That was basically the most interesting work story today.

Finished chap 10 of the Sylvia story. Started 11 but realized the ghost thing was lacking. I'm making it into more of a murder mystery where the ghost just stands around they have to figure out what happened, rather than the ghost just telling them. Because that's boring. I need at least one more clue though, the final clue. We'll see what I come up with.

Got to the end of the 300+ chapter story I'm reading. it's not done yet. How can you write so many chapters?

Came home, had dinner. Checked sites. Then went out again to see "I could copy files once but not a second time duh!" guy. In the cold. And the dark. So fun.

Went out there. He didn't actually need anything moved, because he mostly had onedrive set up. It wasn't working on one PC so I upgraded it or whatever and it started again. He really needed some apps installed, thankfully he had the installers on the one. So I got through that and got home at 8:00.

Still didn't reach printer guy, but the lady down the street called me as I was about to go back upstairs because I wasn't calling her cell phone, I wanted to look at her machine remotely. But she is right across the street so I agreed to go over there.

Oh right I have to call blue screen guy! He says it isn't blue screening anymore. Sigh. Okay he's going to drop it off, that helps. But Friday but i guess that's fine, I can work on it while doing the game the most painful part of the process is just waiting for the files to move over. I hope it's windows and not the drive because that would make getting his stuff off harder.

Tues:
Some work today. A one hour meeting bringing our total meeting time about the machine cloning the color table to more than 1.5 hours. Yes, only we can have a one hour meeting about the simple act of installing a clone file.

Also set up the device to get the log. I don't think it's been touched, I just turned the login screen back on. Naturally, it doesn't work. It's totally busted. Seems like every time I go to use this login screen it's busted. Weird, that. I emailed the usual people "hey here is what I did, yes I'm testing this crappy product again please fix it?" but they didn't get back to me. So there's that.

Wrote a chapter and a half, almost done dealing with the ghost.

Went to see edge lady. Her machine was fine. Mostly. I poked around, make sure things were in order. And got cookies.

Came back here, had dinner. Checked sites.

Shoot, almost forgot the most important news. I only got half the haul today. Yes, half! I checked at the usual times but at 3:30 the one location had been changed already. Gurr. Why doesn't all this have a set schedule? But the other location had a few things. So I at least got something but I get so little these days every one counts. Oh well. Waste increased this week I guess.

Reached printer guy, and he was fine so that takes care of that. Nothing for tomorrow.

Did xbox with the others.

Wed:
I did get a response to my query about the machine that's acting up. That response was, "I guess it shouldn't be doing that, huh?!" No, no it should not. Then of course he asked for remote access to it, because we can't do anything without that, but we've made it at as hard as possible to do it. It's not just a switch of some kind, that we can turn off when we build the version of the software we're going to release. No no. I followed the procedure I know of to do it, but it didn't work. I emailed back, "here's the output from the procedure I used. Is there a new procedure to use, because it didn't work?"

I got no reply.

Such a great piece of code. So glad to have been a part of it.

Elsewise I finished 3 chapters today. Yes! That's a lot, you may say. I was surprised too. But it just kept coming out so I kept putting it down.

Came back here, checked sites. Videos, and dinner. Only one slice of pie left, boooo! Then I make the killer crackers. Killer because it has enough butter and sugar to actually kill you! Must be eaten in small portions only.

Did xbox with myself. It's a special promotion you have to do 4 missions so I just did them. It only lasts a week and they were easy so no big deal.

Thurs:
Got a pretty good haul for once! If you only count granola bars. I got tons of them. And candy bars. More cereal. The weird thing was, the lady left some stuff on the table. I was doing the plants and saw her there, and there was a big crowd around the drink dispenser. By the way did I say? The "chocolate milk" is really just hot cocoa with a shot of milk. That's all. That's why it was hot. Anyway. They all finally left and I went to get stuff but it was just sitting on the table. Shoot, now that I think about it, the second location had stuff in two cans. She didn't leave anything out there. I should have still checked the cans! Well, I can tomorrow morning I doubt they'll be emptied between now and then. Anyway, a lot of those nasty cookie dough bars, I'll see if the birds will eat them or something they were terrible. I did get a few sandwiches, don't get me wrong. One thing of carrots. But mostly bars.

Work wise had the meeting. No action on my misbehaving machine. So that's neat.

Only did 2 chapters today. What a slacker!

Got back here, one call but she's not going to be here today. Well I don't return calls fri/sat so you're screwed lady!!!

Checked sites, ate dinner, got caught up on Rick and Morty.

Looking ahead, I'll probably go to the bank tomorrow, I have just enough to deposit I guess. Shopping. May have some work tomorrow? The backlog is getting stuff back in it at last, for next year. Demo... monday? Tomorrow? It's sometime soon.

Seeing my parents of course. Don't know about game, Sean wanted to do the warframe stuff, I told him I already did it because it was easy, don't cancel game for that on my account. We'll see what happens then.

Over the weekend I'll want to do a lot of the wrapping, make the killer stuff, as I finished the pie today. I should be in good shape. There's only one gift that hasn't come in yet. It "departed shipping partner facility" whatever the golf balls that means, that was 2 days ago. USPS is "awaiting item." Great. Thanks.

Only one more Monday to the Big Day. You've got a lot of christmas specials to get through, better get cracking.

See you next time when we're only days away!