Older blog entries for Al (starting at number 68)

Early last week it was Python, towards the end of last week it moved to Java and now the flavour (of the day) is apparently documentation! I guess I'd better add the DocBook stuff to my pile of things to learn.

Sunburn is getting really annoying.

I've spent most of the last three days in the wrong corner of the country. Friday involved visiting a possible business partner directly in the flight path of Heathrow. Very odd.

Saturday I read mail before heading off back East (I've seen quite a lot of the M4 these days!) to visit a friend and stay over-night so we could get an early start for...

Sunday involved driving up to Silverstone for the Formula One Grand Prix. Despite Coulthards little problem in the early laps it was otherwise a lot of fun. I got badly sun burnt though - it's painful.

12 Jul 2001 (updated 12 Jul 2001 at 20:22 UTC) »

Swings and roundabouts.

Amid busily learning the system library for Python (which I'm finding a good deal more interesting than I had expected) I have now had it suggested that I should be learning Java next. Obviously. Considering my degree studies for next year will see me learning SmallTalk and C++, and I already know C, I'll know more programming languages than makes sense for me - which might help me move away from sysadmin and into systems development.

My submission of a really really stupid (i.e. no-one else on the planet would bother to submit it) bug into Red Hat bug system apparently worked, and the field will be wider. On a similar note, Linux Expo B'ham or Red Hat Techworld??? Decisions, decisions.

London tomorrow to look around a co-lo place with the sales director. Then back to Bristol, then Saturday morning off to Bracknell and then Silverstone on Sunday for the F1 Grand Prix!!!!!

Sunday
Sunday ended up being a lot of fun. Started working on the final module of this years OU stuff. It's still pretty simple but it's filled some surprising gaps. I'm looking forward to getting my teeth into something more challenging next year.

Started looking into network features of the Python 2.0 standard library. I'm quite impressed, it's time to do some frontends too :)

Monday
Long testing day. Things at work are getting a bit crap at the moment.

At 17:46 the leased line died. Various problems ensued and I didn't have a very fun evening. Annoyed.

Tuesday
Telco finally fixed the circuit at 11:38... 17 hours later. Not impressed, nor were some of the customers. Lots of problems.

Wednesday
Going from bad to worse. Major red-tape hell.

Monday
First day back after long and very tiring weekend. Huge pile of things to do and there's been a massive reshuffle at work and apparently my department is now part of sales and I report to the sales director... Not sure how much he knows about Systems... This is getting out of hand now? Do they want us all to quit I wonder?

Wednesday
Visited Linux Expo at Olympia. It was mostly disapointing as there were very few interesting stands though I did bump into quite a few people: some from last weekend, and Telsa who I've not seen in a while... This reminds me there are penguin issues to deal with!

Thursday
Somehow managed to get involved in some really stupid political debates at work. Yet again I'm starting to wonder where all of this is leading!

Friday
Got to play with some digital TV stuff at work today. I'm quite impressed that at least one of the dTV providers in the UK (onDigital) appears to use Linux.

Saturday
Finished Module 2 of my OU course. Now I can get on with the final module without feeling guilty about not finishing the last lot. Did some reading on Bonobo and CORBA since I figured it was time I did so. Spent several hours at a friends house eating pizza and generally doing no work and not feeling either tired or stressed. Seems odd.

Nice relaxing Saturday.

UKUUG Linux 2001 - Manchester

People were looking extremely tired this morning, even those people giving talks. Started with a talk (hugely entertaining) from the guy who oversaw Linux Benchmarks followed by an interesting talk on Powertweak. Did the more web-like stream next, Zope and Gimp/templates and some stuff. Finally a talk on Flightgear.

Heading home.

Getting back was a bit of a nightmare. The Virgin Train from Manchester to Birmingham was delayed by 17 minutes, it was VERY full, though when I did get to sit down the people I was sat with were very entertaining for the duration of the trip. The train from B'ham to Bristol (again Virgin) was cancelled and we had to take another train - which now had two sets of people on it and was rather full too!

Now I need to sort though all my mail, OU stuff, post, washing, news etc before some well needed sleep and work tomorrow :( I don't want to go :(

UKUUG Linux 2001 - Manchester

Quite a few people looking a bit groggy this morning. I was tired enough after the dinner to go back and read mail before sleeping but many went on the pub.

The mornings sessions included part II of the Birth of Computing in Manchester, which is the story of the first stored program computers. This was followed by Linux on Laptops, then Samba TNG Architecture and Design and finally DCE is alive and well in a datacentre near you.

Lunch was followed by Gnome Architecture and Development and RAD with GNOME and Python and Glade. This was followed by NUMA & O_DIRECT then Zero Copy, and finally Linux on PDA's before we vanished for food.

If I thought I was tired yesterday, I had no idea!

30 Jun 2001 (updated 1 Jul 2001 at 20:31 UTC) »
UKUUG Linux 2001 - Manchester.

Tired. Very very tired.

Some interesting talks... two on Linux clustering, (one on beowulf, one on load-balancing/failover services), a talk on the future of Linux at IBM (who were the main sponsor of the conference) and, after a break, one on porting Linux to the Sledgehammer (AMD 64bit x86) and one on vsyscalls. Another break before a talk about the first ever stored program computer (Baby) developed at Manchester, and a demo on a replica at the science museum.

Dinner at a Chinese restaurant.

A lot of fun but it all starts again in 7 and a half hours and I need sleep and breakfast!

Thursday - 19:00 - Bristol
Chaos at work, utter chaos. All sort of sorted out now, except for the 4 people who were laid off. Hopefully I can go away for 3 days without anything huge breaking.

Thursday - 21:05 - Birmingham

Train left Bristol on time, crawled up past Cheltenham (complete with annoying prat with Gameboy Advance) and arrived a few minutes late in B'ham. As I walk up onto the concourse I look to see how long I have before my connecting train... 35 seconds... oh boy.
Thursday - 23:50 - UMIST - Manchester.
Staying in halls, what a chuckle. Small and somewhat primitive room but it has a nice view over Manchester. Wandered around a few of the near bits of town, realised the 10 minute walk from the station to the halls was the long way around. Security guard was friendly, got room sorted. It has ethernet which I need to arrange in the morning.
27 Jun 2001 (updated 27 Jun 2001 at 22:21 UTC) »

Why does everything always happen at once?

Suddenly it's Wednesday evening, I've still got to finish my OU assignment before tomorrow morning (and get some sleep hopefully) so that I can pack up the last of my stuff while the plumber fixes the boiler at 9am. Dash to work for a few hours and try and clear some of the backlog of work. Head off at 5pm back to the house to drop car and pick up odds and sodds and it's off to Manchester for UKUUG 2001.

Tired.

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