Dude....

Today, I released a high falutin' rootin' tootin' Windows Application to my entire deparment which is about 50 people or so. I've never done that before. Any Windows apps I've ever written have been for my own use (I'm primarily a "Web" guy), which essentially means I know the bugs, know how to avoid them, and don't really care to fix them.

After installing the app on two computers I found a bug, on the third I found another. I decided to go back and fix the bugs before continuing with the installs. The program will detect when there are new versions out on the server and download them, but I figured, eh, I've only installed it three times, might as well fix them now.

Ok, I fixed the bug and went back to the three previous installees desks and Voila! when they ran the application it automagically did the upgrade. Genius.

I wandered around my department looking for people who are at their desks, many aren't, so I can put this program on their computers. A lot of people look at me with distaste, because they don't know who I am (because I was never introduced to the department) and assume, I guess, that I am part of the Man's organization trying to beat them down.

"No, no, no, I am your Technical Analyst. I am here to ascertain your computer needs and take steps to alleviate your struggles."

"Can you help me with Lotus Notes?" they sometimes reply. "Hell no," I say, "Call the Help Desk."

Other times they whine, "My internet doesn't work after 3 o'clock."

"Maybe you should come in at 6 am then," I say.

Apparently, they know as little of the duties of a Technical Analyst as I do. Last week I was bored so I wrote a Javascript countdown thingie. When it gets down to a certain number of days it starts to blink. The fewer the days, the faster it blinks. Oh, and the font size gets bigger. No, this was not work related. It was insanity related. I needed to work on something inane. Something that I could just sit in front of notepad and type and test, type and test. I hate the "visual" aspects of .NET.

After about 7 or 8 installations, I notice that the program is taking a freakin' long time to load. A lot longer than a program that uses about 1 mb of memory and makes 3 calls to the database should. Why? I dunno.

"It loads fast on my computer," is what I tell people (which it does), "And it loads fast on hers," while I point epilectily at the ceiling.

I was forced to use an Access database. Puke. I almost considered setting up my PC for MySql or Sql Server, but didn't. The powers that be will take care of setting up our departmental Sql Server. Sometime in '07.

Holy crap. This is my longest post in 4 months. I've said too much.

Bye.