Managed World

A coworker sent this link to me that I just had to share with all of you. If you have ever worked on legacy code before, I know it will all hit home for you like it did for me :D.

It's times like these that I wish my blog was totally anonymous so I could make an incredible ass-clown of myself and not be worrying "Will Bill still respect me in the morning?" Damn!

:: BEGIN_RANT ::

Dear Microsoft,

I fear I must retract my first letter. Apparently, I am a tremendous dumb butt. I TOTALLY forgot that OF COURSE the software would work perfectly within INTERNET EXPLORER but not at all within FIREFOX. I don’t know what I was thinking. For some silly reason, I was thinking that perhaps technology has come far enough that a web browser is a web browser is a web browser. I was wrong. I can see clearly now the rain is gone. It’s gonna be a bright, be a bright, sun-shine-y day!

Now, if you excuse me, I must go cleanse my computer thoroughly from the IE-induced contaminates that have been flooding my box over the last several minutes. Hey, but at least they are MICROSOFT contaminates, I suppose that’s a start. At least then I can install MICROSOFT Antivirus and MICROSOFT Firewall and MICROSOFT Antispyware and MICROSOFT computer condoms to keep myself safe.

Man, what was I thinking?!?!? I can’t believe I could be so dumb. You know, I just thank the good Lord above that .NET and Managed DirectX are both so fun and great that even with all these announces, that you, oh Microsoft, can still be on my good side. But if that changes, so help me…. I’m out of here!! I SWEAR! Well, perhaps not, but there's a good chance!!!!! [Maybe...]

:: END_RANT ::

:: BEGIN_RANT ::

Dear Microsoft, although I have been a loyal customer for several years, I’m finding your latest practices to be fairly annoying. The least that you could absolutely do is ensure that if you tell me to automatically run a program off of your website, that you link me to the latest version of that program. Is that too much to ask? Because if it is above your abilities, I understand and I will waste my time digging around your terabytes worth of web pages in order to find the latest version that you weren’t kind enough to provide me with in the first place.

You see, I face a dilemma now. In order to make this whole situation easier on myself I either: A) Use Google to find the latest version of your “Genuine Windows” program on your mega site or B) Just say screw your “Genuine Windows” and find what I need elsewhere. As you can tell, both options require not USING YOU in the least bit. Now, if your goal in life is to drive away all your loyal customers, than fine I say, I’ll see you on the other side. However, is it too much to ask that you simply make your customers experience less of a pain in the rear than it is today (I realize that you still may have reservations about removing the pain from our ass completely as then we might focus more on you as a business and less on the extreme PAIN IN OUR REAR!)?

Because I am running entirely legal copies of Windows XP, I have absolutely no reservations about participating in your “Genuine Windows” program. However, if you’re going to make me jump through these hoops simply to download the latest DirectX SDK, please stop the bleeding a little bit, okay? That’s all I ask: just beat me a little less, massa; I promise I’ll be good, massa. If I’m having to jump through all your validation hopes, please ensure that when I get to the end, that you don’t slap me in the face, okay? For instance, I went to participate in this program to get the latest DirectX SDK, and what am I presented with when I try to run YOUR application on YOUR operating system? This:

 

So, now thanks to you, I’m going to be digging around your site just so I can get this stuff working, all because you can’t.

Thanks once again, Microsoft.

Your loyal ass-clown,

Jason Olson

:: END_RANT ::

I came across this comic tonight thanks to a link from David Weller. If the first comic is any sign of where it’s going, I’m already hooked. It even has an RSS feed for you syndication junkies out there like me that need your fix injected directly into your computer’s life-blood pipeline. Enjoy!

Well, I thought since Rory is comfortable posting up his personal writing stuff, I’ll try to get comfortable posting up my music for a change.

This little diddy is one that I just started tonight. Obviously, it is FAR from being finished, but that explains the title of this post, I suppose. The context in which I’m writing this piece of music is the same ol’, same ol’ in the world of game development. The game is a classic console RPG (a la Final Fantasy), and the music is the theme for the “childhood friend” of the hero. You know, the shy girl that turns out to be a lot hotter when she’s older.

Obviously, the exercise doesn’t get much deeper than that since I don’t really have a true story to base this music off of. I’m going for “setting” and “ambience”, more than anything else.

I don’t promise, but I’m thinking of perhaps posting my progress of the song as I go along so all of you can hear how it evolves over time. I doubt any of you will really be interested in this kind of thing, but I’m doing this for my own sake also, so it really doesn’t matter. Enjoy! Or don’t! I don’t care. Just remember, this is something I jotted down in an hour or so and it is just a rough draft of the song. If it were a game, the game would still be in all wireframe, and only half the models would be there (and no controls would work). You get the point!