Woxidu

To some, computers are the biggest, if not the only means of productivity in their daily lives. These people need to feel comfortable with their computer desktops in order to be their most efficient. Knowing where everything is helps a person become familiar with their desktop’s organization and then helps them avoid doing more work than necessary when they want to use a particular program or window. OS X helps you to organize your desktop by providing a shortcut for switching between Applications. Apps are then broken down into Windows for each task. I prefer yet another degree of abstraction so I’ve installed VirtueDesktops (whose development has been discontinued, sadly) in order to allow myself multiple Desktops on which I can put many Applications. Each Desktop represents a category of tasks. “Browsing” is for Safari windows, “Mail & Chat” is for just that, Mail and iChat, “Other” is for iTunes and iCal and other peripheral tasks, and “Work” is for whatever happens to count as “productive” at the moment.

Enter the outsider. The one who neither knows how to make the most of their computer, nor cares that you are trying to make the most out of yours. She asks if she can use your computer to “check her mail.” She doesn’t know that your iChat windows are placed exactly where you want them to be. She doesn’t know that your setup was designed to prevent as many windows as possible from falling off the edges of your screen. She definitely doesn’t know that there’s such a thing as multiple desktops. When you get your computer back from her, you want to cry. Everything! As out of place as possible! I half expect my menu items to be rearranged!

These people offer the classic reason for having an OS that is aware of multiple users. These people must be allowed to log-in to their own sandbox environment. They ought to be able to have their own room so they won’t want to play with my toys! Just make sure your screen locks before they get to it. If they aren’t interested in learning how multiple Desktops work, then I shudder to think about how they’d react to explaining the necessity of them using a different User name!

Money

I’m a poor college student. I charged a $1.50 PATH train ride to my PNC debit card two days ago and accidentally overdrew my checking account by $0.30. I still had $0.60 in my savings account, but I was charged $34.00 in overdraft fees anyway. I tried to transfer the money into the checking account online to cover the overdraft, but couldn’t because the online banking software doesn’t allow transfers of amounts less than $1.00. Evidently, transfers of this scale cannot be made over the phone either. The only way to make such a transfer is to go to an actual PNC branch and talk to a real-live-person. I could also have gotten what’s called “Overdraft Protection.” This is a service whereby money in some account A can be used to cover an overdraft in some account B. Perfect… right?

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Lots of people give things up for Lent. Despite not being religious, I still think that the practice of giving up a part of your life for your own enrichment is worthwhile and respectable. You see how to live your life in a different way and it keeps you strong and versatile. I have things that I need to give up from my life to keep myself strong and versatile. That’s what the next week is all about.

Sometimes you need to lock yourself away and force yourself to focus on what you need to do. Some things in this world are important enough that you just can’t give up on them. No matter how bad a situation gets, you can’t let them go. If you drop the ball on them, you NEED to pick it up and make things right.

This week, I’m going to pick up the ball and make things right. I have alot I need to do, alot of loose ends to tie up. The goal is to focus on the pieces of my life that I’ve neglected lately. I’ll be temporarily purging my life of many things, including several internet sites I waste lots of time on, games, and most instant messaging. I’ll still be on occasionally, but probably not for long stretches at a time. There’s much more important things for me to be spending my time on now.

Lately I’ve been focusing on the idea that people often get stuck in cycles that control how they interact with others. They start out with an idea about themselves, they rig things so that they communicate this idea about themselves with others, and then the people around them behave in ways that uphold and confirm the ideas the person had in the first place. At some level, this is just the idea that people make prophecies that are self-fulfilling.

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I got back to Pittsburgh yesterday and today I cleaned my room and registered for the important classes this semester. I can’t wait to finish up and get on with life in NYC!

Speaking of which… I spent the first week of 2007 at the office of my new employer, OkCupid.com. I learned how to use a system called TAME to make callback-driven programming much easier. That was cool, except they started me out working on a pretty big chunk of code (2.5k+ lines). Towards the end, I worked on the mailing system to try to improve the matches it sends to new users. It looks like it’s going to be a fun and exciting place to work.

We spend our days relatively quiet, which is one of the more bothersome things about the office. I like to talk about my ideas, and I like it when others talk about theirs. People talk a bunch on MSN, but it’s not the same to me.

In all, I’m quite excited about working at OkCupid. I’m most interested in where the company will be going from here and how it seeks to situate itself inside of a cultivating lifestyle. I’m now a bit more interested in how internet dating will continue to grow on the internet. What people does it appeal most to? How will the element of unveiled personal intimacy change the way people use social networking sites? Will it even at all?

More to come, for sure. In the meantime, if you haven’t signed up already, get to it!

I’m far away from the stressful town of Pittsburgh and getting away from it wasn’t easy. First I missed my train. The 6:40 am bus didn’t come past my corner this morning. I took the 7:07 am bus instead, and ended up 15 minutes late for my train. My options were to (A) take a later train, (B) get a refund, or (C) get the tickets honored by Greyhound. As much as a cringed to do it, I took the (admittedly shorter) bus ride. I walked all the way to the Greyhound station with all my bags along with another guy who also missed the same train. Once we got there, we couldn’t get in without either walking all the way around the station or jumping the fence, so I did that and put a big cut in my thumb in the process. The Greyhound employees gave me their usual, top-knotch brain-damaged service (accepting my tickets, giving me a baggage claim, then giving my Amtrak tickets back to me, only to get bitched at by the driver for handing him Amtrak tickets). Finally, by 9:00 am, I was on a bus (probably smelly… I wouldn’t know) to Baltimore.

The trip was fine, and besides a few relatively minor snags, I ended up safe and sound here in Baltimore by 3:00 pm. Now to start the real winter break craziness! I might be going to my high school on Friday to chill out with old friends during their winter party. It’s always big and crazy. Maybe I’ve outgrown high school, though? We’ll see who all decides to show up.

Then, this weekend, after a quick stop in NYC to split the trip, my family and I will be driving up to see my brother and family in Boston. We’ll spend christmas up there and chill out for a few days. I’ll make him extremely jealous of my laptop/iPod, and generally lounge around his place and soak up the loving rays of my niece, Simone 😀

I’ll then travel back down to NYC and spend New Years Eve and the whole first week of January with friends/girlfriend/family. Justina and I have plans to go to a fancy open bar uptown, then crash somewhere (?) for the night. I have a hotel lined up for me through my new job (more on that later!) where I can check-in on the 1st, then spend that week going into the office and getting acclimated to their systems.

Then, it’s time to go back to Pittsburgh somehow and clean my room (which I left a complete mess) and get my life together to finish college once and for all. I’ve been at that place way way way too long.

So it looks like I’ll be in Pittsburgh for four or five months longer than I thought I’d be. I’ve slacked off in a few key areas that hurt my chances of getting out of here in a reasonable amount of time after my accident. On a happier note, things look good for me getting out of here in May. At the start of this semester, I was gearing up to be short only a few units so next semester should turn out light and easy. I’ll post more details once I’ve met with my advisor about what those units will be.

After school? Who knows. I have a few job prospects that I’ll be posting about later on. However, things look good for my plans to go live in NYC. Everything for me is there: family, friends, girlfriend, and soon, a job.

Since getting my MacBook Pro back in March, I was always slightly disappointed by how little I could actually do with its remote control using the packaged software, Front Row, and the built-in system stuff (like changing the volume, playing/pausing iTunes). When I found iAlertU, I fell in love with the party-trick novelty it gave my computer and was a bit more satisfied. I still wished I could control a more diverse range of applications with the remote. VLC/MPlayer seem to have UIs that fit the remote’s design. They should be prime candidates.
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I got to my spot in Brooklyn at around 6pm yesterday. I met up with my friend Mike from way back in middle school and then we went to see Ra Ra Riot downtown at The Knitting Factory. The band is a group of kids who just graduated from Syracuse and they’re being managed by Adam, my best friend from high school. The show was one of the best I’d seen recently and I really want them to come through Pittsburgh this fall. Check them out online at www.rarariot.com or http://www.myspace.com/rarariot (with embedded flash music player).

I have subletters.
I have^[1] a job.
I have an apartment in Brooklyn.
I have projects to work on.
I have friends^[2] in NYC.

That is all.

[1] The NYC Department of Health will undoubtedly make me dive head-first through hoops of fire while filling out copious amounts of paperwork before they give me a starting date
[2] Justina is in Taiwan for the next three weeks. No girlfriend until then