Luke Williams: goodbye and good luck
News, Work, School ·Friday September 12, 2008 @ 01:57 EDT (link)
20080910: Early am: trying to log in to work to submit some changes (co-authoring object model), but I'm waiting for automated test results to come back. I don't see the results in my (web-based) email, so I log in, which is a lot of fun in itself: first I have to get the highly-finnicky Microsoft IT Connection Manager to work (see previous rants 1 2 3), then I have to go to the internal tools site and run a debug script which magically fixes some machine Kerberos tickets so I can terminal serve to my machines, but that doesnÂt quite work so I have to connect to the REDMOND domain and (and reboot; see previous #3), re-run the magic debug scripts, and then remote desktop appears to work.
Remote desktop is also highly finnicky: for one of my machines, when the login prompt shows up, it grays out and tries to use the smart card, which hums for a bit and must be canceled or it fails and logs me out. Then it shows a normal password prompt, except that it ignores the first password (but if you hit enter it logs you out, so I have to type some random characters to get it to fail), and only then do I get to log in. Wow. Is Windows a heap of crap or what? Modular design and standards (open or not), people. Software architecture, do you speak it?
Anyway. I log into DROBINS5, my newest development box, and check the automated test system, but it's down for maintenance. Never fear, though: they expect it to be back at midnight. Good luck with that, since it's 0033 now, but why should I be surprised, they couldn't stick to a deadline last time either. Must be the dreaded patch Tuesday that I've heard about.
Checked in during the day; the tests passed except for some OfficeArt failures that should be unrelated to my changes (knock wood).
Luke Williams' farewell party was today; a group gathered in the kitchen for cake and a few songs from Luke, which is fitting since he's heading out into the world to make music. He was my office mate way back when I started (in 36\3157); some of us once filled his side of the office with red Microsoft logo cups1,2 while he was on vacation. After a stint in Word, he went over to WAC (Web Access Companions, online versions of popular Office programs). Luke has a blog.
1 There's no problem revealing LW is Luke Williams now since he no longer works there and time has passed; I try to keep current co-workers' full names off my site for their privacy and mine, and also to keep my site off web searches for their names.
2 The cups are now earth-friendly green, and can no longer be used in the microwave; I usually take two since they conduct heat rather than insulate, which probably negates any individual environmental savings from the switch.
Went to PMP orientation today; headed out at 1730; it went 1830-1937 (Professor Ladner talked about his new Accessibility course, and then the rest was just going over stuff that was already on the web site and we could and should have done ourselves, so it was somewhat slow going); I left the school 2145 (after talking to Dr. Rispoli some and looking around), arrived home about 2220, not bad, considering getting there just from Redmond took about 45 minutes.
20080911: Costco; bought Logitech Harmony (620) remote. Setup program is pretty crap, but it manages to work (and did find my existing remotes). It's crappy because it gratuitously (as in more than just to fetch updates) talks to a web site, which becomes a problem later. Also got an 8Gb USB stick and a(nother) 4Gb CF card, since they'd sent us a coupon (ditto for the remote; coupons work).
Luke Williams' farewell party was today; a group gathered in the kitchen for cake and a few songs from Luke, which is fitting since he's heading out into the world to make music. He was my office mate way back when I started (in 36\3157); some of us once filled his side of the office with red Microsoft logo cups1,2 while he was on vacation. After a stint in Word, he went over to WAC (Web Access Companions, online versions of popular Office programs). Luke has a blog.