Disappointing and frustrating

Posted by mkhairul - November 11, 2008 at 03:11:47 pm - 2 Comments

Categories: blog, rants

Right now I can’t think of anything. There’s too much stuff in my mind and my train of thought just wanders aimlessly to one subject to the other and my attention span is the size of a gnat.

Between that and my frustration from lack of communication within the team, it just felt like taking a blow with a sledgehammer in the chest. It brings you down, lying on the floor, barely alive in the pool of your own blood with every bit of hope crushed out of your lungs. Its the feeling of helplessness that is too much to bare. After 5 months of relentless effort to nurture communication between team members, I felt as though I have accomplished nothing. There is still very little communication.

A typical day would be like this.

*comes over to teammate cubicle*

Me: "Whats up? What are you guys people doing?" ("Korang tengah buat ape?")

*long explanation of the tasks at hand which they can solve*

Me: "Ok, cool. Just don’t forget to log it into the Issue tracker and update the wiki"

Teammate: "But I don’t have time. I’m very busy, you know"

Me: "So you’d rather answer phone calls over in the weekend when something happens than write about it? We are a team we need to know how to solve problems that the team members have already solved. We must not think as many but as one!" (My ramblings continues.. )

Continue reading Disappointing and frustrating…

Steam Problem

Posted by mkhairul - November 4, 2008 at 10:11:34 pm - No Comments

Categories: Troubleshoot, rants

I bought fallout 3 using steam (digital distribution service from Valve), the first problem that I had was updating steam. I downloaded steam through their site and installed it normally. When I run steam, it updates something and then it can’t find a DLL (steam.dll). Searched through the forum on the net, found some answers, try it out, still the problem persists.

I went ahead and find steam.dll, downloaded it, and it says can’t find steamui.dll. I downloaded that too and continued, it updates just fine.

Few hours ago, when I arrived home from work, ran steam and it doesn’t load. It says there’s no connection to steam. I deleted cleanregistry.blob and still no luck (but this time all the login info is lost). Restored the blob file and restarted the router. Finally it runs smoothly. This is some crappy software that valve have. Time to shoot some mutants!

Life as a wiki admin

Posted by mkhairul - October 13, 2008 at 07:10:48 pm - 3 Comments

Categories: blog, rants

Well, today really sucks. I was pissed off by a colleague giving sarcastic remarks when I was trying to do what I think is something good for everyone, by politely requesting them to put information into our department’s wiki. Thus ruining the whole day.

I really don’t know why I bother with the wiki. Nobody is giving any cooperation.

Everyone is keen on using word of mouth and take notes on their own. This is killing my enthusiasm and my spirit. Very depressing. I guess I’ll try confront this colleague and give a piece of my mind tomorrow.

I’m gonna set my expectations of everyone to none. Just face it. Nobody is going to update the wiki with info (except the librarian). Nobody is using it as reference (except for me). *sigh*

Fragmented Task Management

Posted by mkhairul - September 8, 2008 at 01:09:30 am - No Comments

Categories: blog, rants

I keep track of stuffs using Todoist, Task Coach, Google Notebook and Google Calendar. That’s a lot of apps. Here’s a rundown on what I do with it.

Todoist

General stuffs with as little detail as possible. Stuffs like Redesign Blog, Improve MyQuotes, Read <this> book and many more.

Task Coach

Here I keep specific tasks that I have to do. Infiltrate enemy castle with little noise as possible and kill the warlord kind of tasks. The task summary is as detailed as possible but not too detailed to keep it from cluttering the view. Tasks I divide into category for example Work -> MyQuotes. I also filter and sort out the tasks by category and have an overview of priorities. I also keep track of time that I spent on specific tasks with Task Coach.

Google Notebook

This is where all the details goes into. All the steps, all the how-tos, all the references and mechanics of stuffs. IT IS TEH NOTEBOOK! Here lies the secret of the Hammer Fist. One hit, one kill.

Google Calendar

Every now and then I plan stuffs and put it in the calendar. Like holidays and stuffs, going for a trip, hostile territory infiltration, some appointment with local warlords and other sorts of things. It’s just nice, I love it.

There you have it. The fragmented ways of task management. It might be horrifying at first glance but I have come to terms with it. Maybe I could combine them and make a SUPER task managing app. The DOES-IT-ALL. HAHAHA! I’m not gonna fall for that. Thats just too much work. Or is it… ?

Maybe I should learn to manage stuffs and keep it in one app. But then again I get frustrated when that one true app can’t do what I want it to do. The hoops that I have to jump through is just unbearable and I just avoid doing it altogether, which is worse.

Validate this!

Posted by mkhairul - August 19, 2008 at 03:08:14 pm - No Comments

Categories: rants

A classic case of bloated software. I downloaded a video tutorial on ASP.NET
MVC Preview 3 (or something like that) and ran it with Windows Media Player. Ok, so then the validation screen pops up asking me to validate with Microsoft or Bill Gates or Steve Balmer or someone/something over
there, I clicked on OK, to go ahead.

I waited for 2-3 seconds. Thats the average maximum time for a website visitor would wait until they get some kind of a response from a website or else they’ll go to someplace else.

Kept waiting for another 3 seconds, still nothing and I went on to find Media Player Classic.
While downloading the Terms & Agreement for Windows Media Player
pops up. I clicked on cancel, realizing my pc is already slow, I don’t know what’ll happen when I install a new Windows Media Player (maybe some taskbar shit keeps popping up, or some taskbar player thing cluttering it), I unzip the downloaded Media Player Classic, BEHOLD! ONE FILE!, unzip in Program Files and ran the video with it.

A Minor Tweak

Posted by mkhairul - July 11, 2008 at 10:07:21 am - 6 Comments

Categories: rants

Just another day at work.

Reported a minor bug to a system (interface). Not even a bug, just a minor tweak. I can almost feel that it won’t be entertained before I reported it, but since it is such an eyesore to me, I  went ahead and report it. Lo and behold! It was not entertained. <LOL>. It could have been done in 2 minutes, but it doesn’t. I guess an application in .NET is just that hard to modify (even though it doesn’t have anything to do with .NET).

Here’s what I see actions that will happen if the bug is entertained.

• The manager for the bug on the project will assign it to someone (2-3 minutes)
• The assigned will read up on the bug, open up VS, update the revision and find the file (10-15 minutes)
• Finished the bug, commit it into the repository and send a request to access the server to the Network & Server team (5-10 minutes)
• Update it. (5 minutes)

4 + 13 + 9 + 4 = roughly 30 minutes (30 minutes doens’t mean the time spent is continuous, maybe its spent 20 minutes today, 10 minutes tomorrow).
Ok, it might interfere with the assigned’s flow on whatever he’s doing but its tough, working with lots of people, lots of stuff happens around you.

The bug doesn’t even need to be tested. As you can see from the picture, its just a minor tweak. In my previous employment, my boss will be breathing down my neck to get it fix. Right now, right away! Because it doesn’t look good. And I have to agree with him.

This is just a rant, no hard feelings to anyone involved!

A Hungry Cat

Posted by mkhairul - July 1, 2008 at 12:07:40 pm - No Comments

Categories: rants

This post doesn’t have anything to do with software development. Its just a rant about a hungry cat.

Last night, on my way to get something to eat, I saw a cat. A kitten maybe, I think its 3-5 months old. No, I didn’t eat the cat, although I’m tempted to do so. Anyway, the cat is on the sidewalk attempting to pry something out of the cracks on it. Maybe trying to get something to eat, a roach or a lizard or some other insect. I called out to the cat and waved, it followed me for a short distance and stopped when I walk too fast.

So I ate some roti telur and after finishing it, went to the counter to pay. On my way, I was thinking about the cat, and I thought I should buy some cat food for it, without realizing that I have passed the counter went out of the restaurant and nearly arrive at the grocery store. Absent-minded or maybe just preoccupied on the thought about the cat.

After paying up, went to buy some cat food and proceed home. I didn’t expect the cat to still be at the sidewalk but there the cat is. With kids (going home from night class) calling out to the cat, feeling amused without realizing that the cat is hungry. So I called out to the cat, and the cat left the kids to come over to me. I opened up the cat food that I bought, and poured it on the ground and left the cat to its feast.

Why an internal wiki is important for a growing development team (or an entire company)

Posted by mkhairul - May 22, 2008 at 10:05:10 pm - 1 Comment

Categories: blog, rants

One of the things that I wished companies have is a Getting Started page in a wiki. As a reference and as a guide. So you don’t have to bother someone else if you forget about something (unless you’re just trying to start a conversation, which would lead to a RTFW).

If you’re not living in a rock for the past few years. Almost every software have a getting started page. Helps their users to get up and running. It is also essential in helping someone who just enters an alien (or slightly different) environment to get up to speed on the ways things are done.

For your information, wiki is also being used by companies such as Motorola (MOT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG), IBM, eBay, and Nokia (NOK). Isn’t that reason enough to deploy a wiki in the company?

Continue reading Why an internal wiki is important for a growing development team (or an entire company)…

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