Friday evening is crunch time. I’ll be packed and getting an early night to go to Oxford to meet the usual suspects; C, Marshall, Ian and Yolanda. No idea as to who else will be there, but regardless, it should be fun for all. It’ll be good to see Ian and Yolanda before they’re scattered to the corners of the UK for University.

Other than a busy weekend, I’ve got a few days left to adjust to a new timetable and lifestyle before the new job. Excellent. It’ll give me something to do again.

And lastly, if you’ve ever written any software and given it away, you’ll know how upsetting it can be to get rude emails demanding features be put in, bugs that you can’t replicate be squashed (without even an error message to go on…) and that you do it now because the person emailing you is oh so busy… It’s annoying, it’s upsetting and downright rude. If I’ve provided you with a service and support and not asked for any payment in return, then you’ve no right to demand from me I fix things that are not broken (you not having Bluetooth is not a fault on the part of my application) or expecting me to implement features that have use to me.

When you start paying me for my work, you can make demands. Until then, shove it.

And in regards to my last post, The Pen is winning. A giant black cucumber in your pocket is a wonderful thing to have.

And take your mind from the gutter. I know what you’re thinking.

I’ve a confession. I hate typing, I hate my keyboard, and I hate starting at a screen

If I could find a way to turn my backlog of analogue notes (read, lots of Europa No. 4 notepads) into a perfect digital format, I would. Sure, I could rip all the pages out, and scan them, one by one, but then I loose the binding, and that’s not something I’m comfortable with in the slightest. It sounds pretentious, but they mean something to me. These notebooks are the only link I have left to my late adolescence, and I’m scared of letting go.

It’s not that it was a spectacular time of life, but the links are there, and I’d miss them. Pen and paper seem to have a feel to them; digital media does not. Sitting out in the garden, I can easily look over old books and notepads and there’s no other requirement other than to have the notes; flick through at will. The concept of the digital shoe-box is not one that ever appealed.

And so, I have a choice. I’m letting go of some of my tech toys, devices surplus to requirements. I could go one of two ways; I could re-invest in tech toys, such as the palmOne LifeDrive or, something that’s far, far more suited to my new life living in a suit, a pen I have long coveted and wished for my own. Certainly, the pen collectors would pour scorn on me for owning such a bourgeois item, but this is something I’ve wanted for so very long. I don’t think I could pass up the change to own one. Maybe then I can start to take proper notes again. One will be obsolete in 18 months, the other should, if treated properly, outlive me. I just need to make sure I don’t drop the damned thing.

Besides; I have too many things going bleep at me already. Some simplicity would be most welcome…

Marshall was right all along.

Once, the Internet was fun.
You could find what you needed, and fast; Google was new and exciting. Stuff was still free. Now, Linux distributions cost money. And if you use them, SCO will sue you.

This blows. It’s like the Penny Arcade strip, Tycho watching Gabe watching his Sims watching TV. I should go outside and read a book. Or, more likely, I’ll go sit on the Circle line and spin around for a few hours and read there. At least it’s relaxing on the Tube.

Today, a new application has landed on my desktop; that application is Ecto, a rather snazzy client for updating the content of my little home on the web. Quite why anyone would ever want to read any of the tosh I put out is quite beyond me, but it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to know that if nothing else, people like and use my little iSync project. Free software puts a smile on my face. As do Google page ranks, but that’s beside the point.

Either way, it’s late, and Car Giant will no doubt be on the phone shortly, shouting that the launch went tits up has been unfortunately delayed due to unseen circumstances and that the HP iPAQs have all died spontaneously in the night. I suppose this means I’ll need to get some sleep before going to beat the ASP dev into a bloody mess with my Communicator.