Brandon's Blog

9/25/2007 #

Automation and Bombasticity

I’m giving myself a much-deserved break this afternoon, because I believe I have just taken two days to write, debug, and execute a custom script that has the ability to do what I would estimate as three to five man-weeks of manual effort in about fifteen minutes of heavy computation.

It is 366 lines of heavily-commented VBScript.  It takes about 430 individual Excel files, merges them into 24 consolidated files, adds summary sheets with subtotals of all the individual sheets, and then calculates quantities based on a separate spreadsheet full of calculation premises, populating each individual sheet (and hence the rollups) with lots of data.

The script itself is guided by a spreadsheet full of instructions as to how the spreadsheets should be organized in their final form, which it parses through visibly on the screen.

When this thing runs, Excel instances fly all over the screen, doing a little pulsing trick on the taskbar that is somewhat amusing to watch.  In fact, I have come to the conclusion that computer guys generally love automation because it implies a hit of “intelligent life” in their creations.

Despite the fact that this is effectively the traditional meat-grinder of input – processing – output, it feels somewhat different, especially since the efforts of the program are so recognizably visible through the Excel manipulations that are actually occurring in high-speed on the screen.

Anyway, it was a blast.  I wouldn’t have thought I would get to do coding on this level for this job, of all things.

As far as Cluster goes, it’s great to be back, and I’m kicking myself for waiting so long to post.  Despite having no clue as to his involvement in the story, I am especially excited about Ripperton Savant, just because of the name and brief description.

Anyway, off to pack up.

9/22/2007 #

Cluster Is Up

I finally posted my edit, and I have revised the frontend to ditch the weird CSS trickery I did originally.  This should behave better on IE6.  I can check it at work on Monday, or if EZ-E still runs IE6 I would appreciate a comment.

9/19/2007 #

Dirtbaggery

I really didn’t understand what the term “dirtbag” meant (any more than a vague connotation) until I was around some ROTC guys my freshman year of college.  My understanding now is that the term deals less with filth (the primary aspect of the “dirt” component, one might say) and actually is more concerned with the “bag” component of uselessness, drawing on the “dirt” component only for weight and perhaps inauspiciousness.

9/9/2007 #

Documentation Fears Not the Reaper

If I don’t write this down, it will all be for nothing (it was, in fact, for nothing, but that is not of issue):

I just got Arch Linux running (Slackware variant with a non-compilation Gentoo spirit) on my Toshiba laptop, since I decided to re-image Windows eventually (made some mistakes last time).  I actually managed to get Beryl (flashy, Vista-like GUI enhancements) running on it, with several one-liner, ad hoc X hacks like little config options to tweak the NVIDIA proprietary driver.  It was a total mess, but I succeeded.  My windows were wobbly for about 30 minutes, and now I’m dropping Debian on for real work.

It’s a joy to have a hobby weekend, but, man, that was a heck of a lot of work for nothing!

9/5/2007 #

I Propose

Why don’t we start making main power cables for computers with two plugs on the end?  That way, if you wanted to change surge protectors or add a UPS device, you could just plug both ends into the same socket, unplug the one you want to move, plug that one into the new device, plug the device into the old outlet, then unplug the backup plug.

Does that make sense?  Plug?

9/5/2007 #

Brief Update

Since I turned my desk unit around, I have already seen a woman walk by with a comically large bundle of helium baloons.  I totally would have missed that if I hadn’t done that today.

9/5/2007 #

Ahh, Feng Shui

I secretly (kind of) just moved all my office furniture, and it feels great.  I face the door, and everything is open and airy.

I’m seriously thinking about Cluster… but I have this new-old project (newly revisited, but long conceived) I’m thinking about and working on which is really taking a lot of my personal mindshare.  It’s a church library computer system, and it’s like the Holy Grail of all my possibly-feasible-to-actually-finish projects.  Maybe it will actually happen this time.  I’m so excited I’m already flowcharting and programming.

I’m not generally a flowcharter when it comes to programming, but this type of system actually seems to merit one.  So, I’m working through questions like “Should they scan the book first, or their card?”

Anyway, back to doings.

8/27/2007 #

Good Day

Today is a good day.  Just wanted to record that.

Work-wise, I’m on the wagon now.  Before, I was chasing the wagon, grabbing on, then falling off.  Now I am on the wagon.

I’m looking forward to my TV tuner card coming in the mail soon (I assume), as it has been on RMA for some time now.  As one of those people who tend to plan and assume the worst, it’s always impressive when you really can return something and get a new one for free.

I think I actually got enough sleep last night, so that also helps.  It’s just a smooth day.  Many of the troubles from last week are coming to resolution, and I feel like I can speak to the results of our analysis.  If only I could get a good start on my top secret project…

8/17/2007 #

Taking Inflation Into Account

Can you imagine how funny the movie Indecent Proposal will be in one hundred years?

8/9/2007 #

The Misadventures of the Technically Inclined

You can’t leave me alone in the house now that I’m married, because I’m bound to start tearing into computers to pass the time.

Yesterday, I decided to open the chassis on cooler.home.local, which is my AMD X2 workhorse/project office desktop (formerly Media Center computer).  This has Vista on a SATA/RAID 0 array, so I’m trying to use a 15 foot pole to touch it rather than the standard 10-footer.

To avoid SATA disruption, I elected to utilize my unemployed Primary IDE controller to install a spare hard drive from my Shuttle (Media Center), zach.home.local.

I had the early scare that I had actually pulled out the primary hard drive on the Shuttle, as it had originally failed to reboot following the drive removal.  This was actually a jumper issue with the drives.  Joy.  We successfully captured Bridezillas and Top Chef last night with no interruption.

Then, cooler didn’t want to boot, so I had to jiggle and re-set some motherboard cable connections.  Still don’t know what was causing that, but the power switch is functional now.

So, I have this Frankencomputer on the floor with its guts spilled out (just like any self-respecting tinker would, I didn’t bother mounting the IDE hard drive into the case, so it basically sits atop the rest of the supine computer).  I have to use a bootable CD (the Ultimate BootCD – very nice tool) to boot into the IDE hard drive’s superblock without disabling the SATA controller or going through BIOS acrobatics.

Once going, I dropped Slackware 11.0 on with the base system and a skeleton X Windows package set.  I grabbed the tool kdesvn-build and started working through a tame, upper circle of Slackware’s unique variety of dependency hell to get the packages to build.  Now I have the uncomfortable set of eight hours to wait, knowing the build was successful, before I get to see the latest development snapshot of KDE 4.0.

The reviews have been positively glowing, especially given that this is basically a background libraries rework (and the monumentous Qt 4.x upgrade).  GNOME users are weighing an exodus, the Window Manager nut-cases are singing praises, and KDE people are basically foaming at the mouth.  Qt 4.x is so good I would be tempted to volunteer my time as a floor-sweeper just to sit and watch people work with it.

I will likely be doing some hair-pulling to get Slackware 11.0 upgraded to the kernel 2.6 series, since my video card does not seem to approve of the old agpgart drivers in 2.4.  This kind of sucks, because if I hadn’t been such an eager beaver I could have downloaded Slackware 12.0, which was out in the beginning of last month.

Anyway, it’s a fun project, and I’m looking forward to reporting how it goes.  KDE has always been fun but not particularly useful for me, so perhaps that will change.