Well, it was a full day. I spent part of the morning at a Community Futures [archive.org link] meet and greet networking type thing. Met some cool people as well. The talk that was given wasn’t directed towards people who are creating a small business like mine (ie: not really one at all), but it is still good to get all the info possible. After that it was a wander out to richmond, then to PoCo to look over some of the work that’s been coming in, or will be coming in, with Yohimbe.
The project that I look forward to least, and that it looks like I won’t have to work on (phew) is a VB.net web based invoicing/accounting/reporting type thing. The original programmer was being a dickhead, so the person that was subcontracting him went to Yohimbe to get someone who knows what they are doing. Apparently the programmer has said that his part of the project is done (not in the “I’m done all that is needed”, but more in the “I’m outta here” way), leaving the guy who was subcontracting him in a bit of a lurch.
The code is, in a word, fuckinghorendiouslycrackmonkeylikeandcouldhavecodeditbetterbyslappingmydickonthekeyboard. Yohimbe and I took quite a lot of the evening simply making fun of it.
Almost all the logic (if you can call it that) is done in stored procedures in the MS sql-server database. There are over 540 files in the project directory, and a lot of them (being named things like .vb, .asp, .aspx, and .aspx.vb) do not much at all, and are there only to implement some HTML, or initialize an object (hehehe, well, that’s if you call VB as having object orientation), or do nothing at all. I saw no non-wizard or form created code from this guy, much less any comments.
Speaking of VB.net, my confidence was greatly shaken by the fact that just to OPEN the project file you had to have IIS installed and running. Just to open the project file in Visual Developer Studio .net!!!!
I left around 10pm, after a great Diva-provided dinner of a yummy burger. Driving home the moon was huge and orange, and I wish I had something to capture it beyond my memory, to share with ya’ll. It was simply amazing.
Oh, almost forgot, had a great run today. Even with a warm up I managed around 25 minutes at 6.0 mph on the treadmill. Felt great. Actually only needed one break as well, before finishing off the 45 minutes. Wonder how I’ll do tomorrow?
Been working to get myself more organized, and have gotten my pilot up to date, purging and/or moving away old information as best I can, and have got JPilot going to help maintain my data off the pilot. We’ll see how it goes. What I really want is a web based calendar service (or better, something I run myself, so I don’t get all sorts of damn banner ads and such BS) that will let me sync my pilot to a calendar that I can then update from the web, and sync them both together. I found a good list, but none seem to be quite right. That’s the same problem I had with trying to find an organizer, there were some that fullfilled some aspects of what I wanted, others did other things, but no one (even the most expensive $100 leather one) did it all properly. So no organizer for me.
My requirements for an organizer are, for those interested.
- not huge, not tiny
- ringed binder so I can replace/add things like a different calendar view, or extra paper
- a space for my pilot, preferably built for it, not just a pocket to stick it, and better yet, with an open window so I can use it while it’s in the organizer
- “wallet stuff” so I have a place to put paper money, credit cards, id, best yet with an extra zippered paper money slot (some of the expensive organizers have this perfectly)
Some of them worked perfectly with the pilot, others had the wallet-replacement part up, and others had the rest, but none had it all. What I’d like to do is replace my wallet + palm with a single item to carry around that lets me have the power of an electronic PDA along with the simplicity of paper.