Techiness

I'll clump web design talk and gadget talk here, I guess.

  • Uncategorized

    Tools, Consumption, and Sin-Eaters

    In working on my Character Sheet Manager for Geist characters, I’m finally building something that I’ve wanted for a couple of years now in projects at work — an Exception logger. Just a piece of middleware that grabs exceptions and logs them somewhere. In my case that’s Redmine, which has an API for manipulating issues. It’s not a perfect API, alas, because I can’t add notes to issues; I have to update the description of the original item. Django makes this very, very easy to build. I have an app in my project just for this Redmine connectivity, and I can keep its code and tests separate and independent. I’m…

  • Uncategorized

    I don’t use too many tabs!

    No story last weekend — I apologize! One will be up this weekend, and I’ll be sticking with the Witches of Ming Ung until it’s done. I think it’s confusing to keep switching back and forth, especially since Witches is a serial plot (whereas Transhuman Congress jumps around). I’ve been in the world of software development for a hot minute now, starting in the high school classroom, through an internship at a startup, to doing fast-paced client work, and now to big corp. One thing I’ve consistently found time and time again, is a correlation between computer UI usage skills and problem-solving efficiency. This is all anecdotal, of course.

  • Uncategorized

    Tidying up LARP character sheets: an app in progress

    So. I LARP. Twice a month, I go out of my house dressed like a nurse and stand around acting like I see ghosts and have an extra-special creepy ghost of my own on my shoulder. Yeah, so if I’m late to your Saturday afternoon picnic this summer, this is likely why. I LARP in White Wolf‘s Geist system, which is very new in the LARP world — the worldwide game just started in March. There’s one person that has taken it upon herself to create and maintain (sorta) Excel character sheets, and the sheets for the Vampire game seem up-to-date and fully functioning. The Geist one isn’t so much,…

  • On Life and Love

    New Witches Story: “Esteemed Relations”

    “Esteemed Relations” is the fifth piece of the Witches of Ming Ung tale: “Did you really need to wear that?” Hardi whispered to Robert. “You look like a clown.” Robert straightened his lavender shirt. “I, my dear, am a peacock in a field of pigeons.” One of the soldiers behind him snorted a laugh. Robert shot him a look, but continued, “I know how station ladies are. I have to stand out from these military types, or I’ll never get… noticed.” Hardi rolled her eyes and eyed his luggage dubiously as they moved forward in line. She refused to ask what was in the five bags, since the answer might…

  • Uncategorized

    When ignorance isn’t allowed to win

    Ever since Apple lost its damn mind in a blood-frenzy of control issues, I’ve been contemplating ditching my iPhone and getting an Android. I’d probably kick AT&T in the process, too. I haven’t done my research at all yet, so there’re no decisions being made at the moment. I know that cell phone plans are pretty much priced the same everywhere, so cost difference from AT&T to, say, Verizon would be minimal, not including the loss of my two corporate discounts. When I mentioned the idea to Greg, he said something interesting: “I’m just not sure. I don’t want to give Apple my money, but I really like the iPhone…