Posts Tagged ‘Work’

Grr. Now I remember my last USB MIDI experience… Last time was with XP in beta, even then it was the same deal. No bloody drivers because XP wasn’t released. Now 7, though its RTM’d isn’t out on the street yet; so no bloody drivers for the just unboxed Axiom Pro 49.

What gets annoying is when you have a phone call earlier in the day where a customer complains about crap not working that used to work or relatively new stuff not working. No drivers, bad drivers, whatever.

I mean come on, it’s not Microsoft’s fault. It’s not like Vista wasn’t in beta for 6 years and 7 for 2+. Hell Microsoft even helps people write their drivers. Still, we get crap drivers way too late which just pisses people off.

I’m not blaming M-Audio here. I’m just frustrated at the statu quo. I’ve not completed my search for updates bits yet so for all I know it’ll be working in 5 minutes. I’m a bit miffed it’s not just a simple plug and play. Or updated drivers off Microsoft Update. My philosophy would be to release early at every point of the process. It’s understandable if the stuff doesn’t work perfectly during the beta. But at least you won’t have customers out in the cold come RTM.

And I do have to say, Vista’s only failure was in its public perception. Yes UAC was overblown, yes they failed to deliver half what they promised at PDC03, but at the same time it was a huge improvement over XP. People will forget that XP was considered crap until SP2 made it what it is. Vista is the same deal. SP2 is amazing most of the time.

Now with Windows 7 people are finally saying it’s what Vista should’ve been, this is rather funny really because even with 7 being as awesome as it is, there’s still a lot left that was still promised and shown at PDC03.

Perhaps Microsoft’s priorities have shifted, for example multitouch wasn’t as huge as it is now. Perhaps Microsoft’s resources haven’t quite been allocated as well as they could be. Or maybe what’s actually being engineered is just a little more complicated than we expected.

I’m still thinking of that amazingly good demo from PDC03 with the millions of photos and albums shown in 3D that was completely fluid, all driven by meta data in a WinFS powered back end. The reality unfortunately is that despite what Microsoft is delivering in 7 and Apple has been delivering in Snow Leopard really doesn’t match up to demos.

Still, 7 is pretty awesome, it’s definitely the best OS Microsoft has yet to release.

You know, it could just be a consequence of trying to move technology so quickly. On both the hardware and software side.

Example, 1080p 56″ LED DLP about 3 years ago was about $3400. Now you could probably find one for $900. LED LCD purchased about two months ago, $3200, at a steep discount no less. Now, $2500, via Amazon.

That’s a pretty fast progression in both price and obsolescence. Maybe everyone just expects too much too quickly .

Maybe Michael Moore has hit on something with Capitalism, I’ve not even seen it yet but I get the feeling we in general have expected exponential growth but have the lack of widespread focus to actually get anything accomplished. And this is due to the current state of Capitalism in the US. It doesn’t seem like everyone is as focused on a singular task as they were when getting to the moon or fighting the Axis powers.

It’s not just technology either, where’s the focus on health, energy, and sustainability? I think Dawkins and Maher might agree that to some extent the lack of focus is exacerbated in part by the lack of reason and the divisiveness of US politics and religion.

But anyway, I just want to make some music damn it .

Yay, finally monitors at the right height, elbows and knees at a 90° angle. This is great. I grabbed the 6.5″ Capita legs from Ikea and the biggest Järpen shelf I could get my hands on. I think the cost was $15 for the shelf and $10 for the feet. Nothing like a quick 15 minute solution to hours of back and neck pain…

I think this must be one of those moments for me where things come together nicely and I just kinda chill about life and live for enjoying everything. I’m not too sure how many hours I’ve been working since I started my job, I’m not too keen to figure it out either. All I know is that it’s probably over 60 a week if you count at home time on the computer reading up, writing, doing email, you name it. I’m feeling like I’m getting loads done and despite having to wind up again to the normal level of multi-tasking that’s required I honestly think I’m getting a lot done. At some point it’s going to have to calm a bit since I can’t keep up this pace. I don’t think there’s any reason I can’t get a little more economical with my time though and gradually balance stuff out.

Speaking of which, damn, do I need to get back to the gym. I’ve been maintaining my weight but I can already tell I’m losing some of the tone I had gained just by not working out for 2 months regularly. I do miss going to the gym for an hour a day, it’s an awesome stress relief when others don’t come as easily, oh and gaming isn’t much of a relief sometimes. At least not when I get my ass blown off by some punk kid yelling out racist comments.

The only thing I really dread at the moment is the commute. I know some people have crazy commutes at close to 2 hours or more. For me though, if I’m in the car for more than 30 minutes each way I start feeling like there’s better things to be doing with my time than sitting in the car waiting for people to learn how to merge.

Despite all the great little things that come with working for the jolly green giant that is Microsoft, I don’t really think my team nor my review would take kindly to me suddenly deciding to cut one more car from the road by working from home. Meanwhile it does seem like I’ve been in the new role for quite some time, in reality it’s been 3 months, not 3 years… unless I count contracting time.

One thing I seem to very poorly at is having a good idea of how much time I’m going to actually have available. I mention this because I had intended on chronicling the initial year or so of actually what it means to be FTE. In some ways I guess I’ve not really failed since my writing has been sparse that in itself is a good indication of what life is like in year one.

I’m a little biased in my perspective and experience as well having been around here a little while, I can’t begin to imagine how much that has actually helped me built up momentum.

Considering it’s now going on quarter past 2AM, I’ll quit rambling and go to bed.

Well it’s crazy how quickly things can change. Only two months have gone by since I wrote about the so called quarter life crisis that I feel I’ve been going through. In that time I’ve sat and thought, a lot, and I’ve still not really come to a firm gut feeling on the subject. Maybe I’m not supposed to and that’s the entire purpose in life anyway.

One hundred day breaks which Microsoft contractors are required to take after a year of gracious service have become a total love hate thing for me. I love that it’s like a paid vacation sort of. I hate the struggle to pay bills. I love that I can get stuff done. I hate that I don’t get enough done. I love the time to relax and think. I hate that after that’s done I can get bored. I’ve heard full time employees (FTE) that go to contracting praise the decision as the best thing since MSFT’s closing price xmas ‘99. Meanwhile contractors, myself included, can complain like mad knowing the income and benefits could be better plus for some there’s always the hope a FTE position will open up.

With that said, I guess I’ve not felt one way or the other about the direction I’ve been taking lately. The best I can do is just go with the flow like always, kick back relax, and just do whatever my gut says is right for me in this moment.

On January 3rd from noon till around 3:45pm I let God roll those cosmic dice as I entered into my interviews for a FTE position at Microsoft (yeah that sounds ominous doesn’t it). First off, I was expecting the interviews to last a lot longer, I’ve done a full 8 hour interview at both Apple and Microsoft before, so this seemed short. The questions all felt straight forward and I think I did an okay job of staying relaxed and actually enjoy the entire process. Since really it should be enjoyed and experienced so that regeardless of outcome I can learn from it. Oh and it certainly helped I had a 40oz water bottle filled and refilled, water == moist mouth and calmness. Though, I will say, it’s a good thing I had a chance to use the loo. One thing that did stick in my mind is that early on I was asked what my 1, 5, 10 year plan was. Geez, what an open question, you want to give your honest answer but want to make sure the answer you give gets you the job as well. How to word it, how to make it right. Then later, in my closing interview I was asked if I wanted to revise my answer since I’ve had some time to think about it. Well crap, was this a chance to correct an answer they weren’t quite looking for? Who knows. Maybe I’ll get to ask at some point. But the point I was going to make was that when this question was asked twice I didn’t even really think about my previous post or thoughts regarding all that. Maybe my brain just kicked in and without consciously realizing it I verbalized exactly how I felt about my next 1, 5, and 10 years. I really don’t know about the next 10 years, seems impossible for me to visualize at this point in life. I have an idea of where I’d like to be so long as I continue down the road I’m now. So yeah, I’ll go with that for now.

Five days later I got a voice mail that started my neurons firing with analysis a couple hours after that I got a reply to my email. Just like that at 2:56pm, definite direction… Interviews went well and I was being offered the position. Like my original offer to come up and work with the eHome team, I think I took about 14 seconds to make a decision. Two days later I got everything in writing and finished up my side of the paperwork. Right now I’m just waiting for the 28th to come by and the real stuff to kick in then.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess after I’ve settled, I’ll feel like the entire experience, and the 13 years leading up to this point is akin to falling in love. Or maybe that’s just the romanticism coming out in me. What I’m trying to say is that it seems like so many things, like falling in love with the right person, is a struggle that has no end in sight. After that moment where everything clicks into place looking back in hindsight one might think, “well that wasn’t so bad”.

Maybe in 10 years I’ll be doing something completely different, maybe I’ll be completely embedded into the road I’m currently paving, who the hell knows. Right now I’m definitely feeling energized and have a renewed sense of enthusiasm about everything. Yeah, I’m still a cynic, but heck, maybe even that will change.

One of the complications of being a contractor at least for the Borg is that you have to take a 100 day break after every full year of service. Unfortunately the cycles of the various projects and such don’t always fall in line with ongoing work. Some contracts require 6, 7, or 12 months. Others really actually require someone full time all the time. Right now I’ve been on one of those contracts. My previous stint with the MCE beta team lasted 1 full year. Then I had my 100 days, then I came back to the beta team, switched to the CSI team, and I’ve been on contract now for I guess 8 months. Originally scheduled to have my contract end in March next year I’ve bumped it up and my last day with the CSI team is next Friday.

A lot of personal stuff has gone on lately and I’ve been feeling like I need a real break for a while now to just go out and do stuff and find myself again. Plus things actually kind of work out better this way. Because the CSI teams needs someone in my position full time, I’d essentially be out of my job and unable to come back after my 100 days because someone else would’ve already been trained and hired. Luckily though, the MCE beta team still loves me and wants me back so by ending things now I get a nice win win.

I can have the vacation I need, some time to go out and be dumb, then after 100 days, in February start back up on whatever it is they’re going to have me working on.

So anyway, I guess this is post to follow up to the last. I’m getting that vacation. I’m sure after like 30 days or so I’ll get bored and want to go back, I do always kinda miss it and look forward to getting back after 3 months.

Oh well… Guess I better start figuring out where I’m going to go for a bit, maybe down to California. Haven’t gone surfing in ages. I’ve also wanted to try sky diving as well, not sure I can afford that one though. Come to think of it, not sure about the surfing either since I can’t afford a board for one time use, lol.