the P.Pole

Did you know that this place, the P.Pole, has been around since 2005? Did you also know that this year I, Carl K. Awesome H. Wong will be turning twenty years young? Yes, my friends, I will be at my quarter-life crisis in about three to four months from now.

Speaking of quarters, I have exactly one left over from paying for a bottle of Coke at work today. I thought I’d treat myself and drink to the Five-Year Anniversary (a “Fiversary” if you will, but you, like me, probably won’t) of the P.Pole. Effectively, I’ve been writing and posting for a quarter of my life with my lovely P.Pole.

I still remember the olden days when I first started out with her on Blogger which was, back then, a completely different beast and not the polished (and rather good-looking) face you’ll see today. I remember spending an entire day figuring out a great name for my own little slice of the Internet, and finally settled on the P.Pole (for some obvious and some clandestine reasons).

Somewhere along the line, I decided to try out Wordpress, as hosted on their servers (with limited functionality without payment). I tested an “Import from Blogger” feature and a month later, I had my own hosting and domain by Dreamhost, running a Wordpress install. I’ve since moved once more, to HostGator, and made a few tweaks to the P.Pole’s face (less than this woman though).

And here we are today, five years later, still posting and updating happily. Here’s to many more! *sips addictive caffeine enriched Coke*

Yesterday, there was a meeting at work where they were explaining to us the etiquette/basics of “blogging”. What is “blogging” you ask? Without being pedantic, it’s what I’ve been doing here for the past several years on my own. It’s nothing new to me, but people “out there” seem to trivialize or write off the habit as something for “those people”. I’m pretty comfortable with writing online–heck, the P.Pole was “outed” yesterday to everyone on the Open Text Yammer network and I’ve already gotten over it–but I don’t know that a new blogger (“NewB” for short?) would feel the same way. We were all required to undergo the training session as Open Text encourages the coops to blog about their experiences at the company, which is actually quite a great idea. I’d be fine with this, and might even make a few posts just for the people running this idea, but I’ve got some bones to pick first (you didn’t really think I’d make it so easy, did you?).

First off, online publication is not for everyone. This was evidenced by the lack of enthusiasm/response when, at the end of the fifteen minute presentation, nearly everyone was either zoned out or leaning out of their chairs to leave. I think most people are great consumers of content, but few are destined for the high and noble calling of producing good, palatable writing. To open this up to everyone is a must, obviously, but to expect everyone to willingly participate is a stretch. In terms of how the internet is used, I’d say the majority of people will mostly be content with consuming content (oh lookit the cute lil’ unintentional pun) 90% of the time, while a small minority focus on producing content 90% of the time. I’d count myself as somewhere in between, with a bias towards producing. And of course, I am not exactly representative of the majority of people hither or tither.

The other major nerve they hit with their system is that they want us to “blog” on Facebook. Don’t get me wrong–Facebook does have its uses. I just don’t think it’s nearly as professional or dedicated looking as an actual Wordpress/Blogger page. In fact, I take my posts from here, where they are true blue to how I want them to be presented, and inject a bastardized form of them into my Facebook feed for friends/family (that may not want to bother with visiting my URL or setting up an RSS reader) a chance to keep abreast (you’ve got to love that word) of my comings and goings. I just don’t think it’s the best way to journal or publish for the long term.

In any case, I suppose this is me half-complying and half-rebelling to their mandate to have us coops blog. Like most other things, I’ll do it if its meaningful, but I’m going to do it my way, because I think it’s better.

Google knows. Google always knows. Especially where it’s at. A quick Google of my name + a commonly used adjective, say, “awesome”, returns in first two places, my Twitter feed, and in a close second, the P.Pole. I do believe this proves and certifies me as the Carl Wong to end all other Carl Wong’s.

Tam, K. and Wong, C. (2010). Completed on the 26th of January, 2010, in response to this clearly inflammatory post.

Welcome the latest addition to our tech-family my brand new PS3 Slim. I did not get the increased (to 250 GB) model and opted instead of an extended, 2-year “don’t ask, don’t tell” warranty from Future Shop. This is mostly because I will later on expand the hard drive myself with something huge and inexpensive when it is time. Or, I will be streaming stuff off a home server anyway so there’s no need to store much content on the PS3 itself.

Anyway, other players in my game of chess include a HDMI (male) to DVI-D (female) connector bit, so I can connect my existing ass-kicking 22″, HDCP compliant computer monitor (Hans, as I named him), and—in the audio department—a pair of sister parts: a stereo audio RCA (female) to 3.5 mm (male) connector, and a 3.5 mm female-to-female bridge piece. With these two together, I will be able to game on my PS3 while plugging into audio with my headphones, or any set of speakers I may acquire later on.

Also, “Batman: Arkham Asylum” is on the way, so that’s going to be my main game for the next long while. In the meantime, MGS4 (that I bought last year) and Mirror’s Edge (today, new for $20 at Game Stop) will keep me preoccupied. I will also go ahead and set up a PSN account too. But, alas, it is time to bed. But yes, woohoo to the max.

Note: I have yet to come up with a good name (female) for my PS3 and am open to suggestions (though I reserve the right to ridicule horrible suggestions). Leave one (or more) in the comments if you please.

Work work!

5 great changes of late:

• at work: I’ve begun work on my term project at Open Text, automating the entire process of my job—”The Idea” (more on this below, post-list)
• at home: Eric, the new guy who is replacing Taylor for this term, has unclogged our shower drain with a pair of tweezers and much Liquid Plumbr (SIC), and now we do not shower in pools of soapy water
• at school: none—no schooling to be done while on coop as it is strictly forbidden
• at OS-level: I was forced to reinstall OS X Snow Leopard when I decided to fix my BSOD problem on Win7 by repartitioning/Boot Camping/installing everything, and now I’ve got a fresh OS X, retaining all my data, and a clean Win7 install, with Team Fortress 2 and CoD4: Modern Warfare 2
• at heart: I feel pretty happy and satisfied what with my deepening friendships, and doing decently well at work, which I had been worrying over before

So! My big Idea. Basically, there are parts of my job that are rather straightforward and could/should very well be done by an automated process. As we are not OS X, I cannot just write up/record an Automator workflow to do these tasks, and am forced to tackle them manually.

One of my term projects (I’ve got about three so far, and they’re all doosies) involves me finding/contemplating/inventing a way to automate most of the process of adding change/project requests, initiating and closing the same, etc…

The Problem: if we are to hook into the system that is in place, I would have to design this all in SQL, a programming language I am not familiar (at all) with.

Continue reading

Open Text!

I am now working for this company, and so far, so good! I didn’t post an info post last week (I believe this would be the first time that I am completely foregoing and not making up for afterward in a long time), mostly because I was so engrossed in work + Team Fortress 2. Actually, I should make up for skipping last week’s post! Double list, ahoy!

5 things I do everyday now:

• wake up at 7 am to Owl City (either “The Saltwater Room” or “Fireflies”)
• wear a long-sleeved dress shirt with  dress or corduroy pants
• keep my work shoes in my filing cabinet
• munch on the complimentary granola bars and “crispy rice marshmallow treats”, while sipping tea or hot chocolate
• find time to trick out my work-desktop while on my lunch break

5 things that surprised me about Open Text (which will be “they” for now, at least until I feel like it should be a “we”):

• they encourage workers (especially the coops) to participate in social networking on and about the job
• they have special phone booths for workers to make private/personal calls
• they have separate communal coat closets for smokers and non-smokers
• they are much more liberal with trusting their employees to make good decisions in terms of ethics (how to use time, equipment, etc…)
• they have hired about 20+ coop students just within the IT department, so clearly they are a huge supporter of the coop program

So far I am liking the work for the most part. I’ve been assigned some pretty rad but challenging projects/assignments, and the day-to-day tasks are no walk in the park, but I am not disliking it. I think this is probably because the environment is so free and positive that I don’t feel a slave or anything. Some things are fun, some things just need to get done.

I think the most enjoyable times are when I get to discuss things with my supervisor (a very senior/veteran Project Manager at Open Text) about the ways we would change things if it were up to us. I think we see eye to eye on a lot of important issues (I don’t know whether it’s because he trained me so I only have his ideas, or if it’s just that we share the same kind of intuition/common sense/expectations of systems). In any case, I am hoping to get more chances to pick his brain and learn lots.

See you all next week! I’m off to bed.