The computer clock was way in the past (some CMOS problems) so windows Internet Time did not allow for an update. I googled “what date is today” and the first two sites in the serp use javascript to display the current date and a friendly invitation to buy ads on the website. Javascript is client side so the current date is taken from the same computer (with the date off). I get the same date as the computer is telling me so the website does not solve my problem and I am off to another website: no time for ads and even if I click something there is a big chance that the tracking will be confused. This is a case where you get #1 in google and you just waste your website bandwidth.
I enjoy coding, I hardly see myself doing anything else for a living. I get satisfaction from pushing bits, transforming data and most of my work is 100% virtual. I am very proud of some of my code that runs uninterrupted for years or that I get to work with genetic algorithms and neural networks to solve some obscure, math problem. I have an almost ideal geeky job. It is quite difficult to explain what I do to regular people and the fact that I usually work on backend stuff does not help at all.
I am working on a small project – nothing complicated (some php&mysql stuff). It is the type of project where most of the challenge is in getting the requirements and helping the client to define the job. This particular case is even easier as the client has good IT skills and knows what he wants.
Today I got a pleasant surprise. He made a small movie about his work. It takes a lot of effort, technology and coordination to load a huge ship with heavy steel coils and keep track of everything in an environment that leaves little room for mistakes. He integrated everything (including my work) to make things run efficiently and the result is something to be proud of.
I got a very pleasant feeling to see how my work touches the real world in such a raw way (tons of steel, a big ship and the ocean …) and it is an interesting change from usual 100% virtual stuff. This movie changed the project from a simple job to something a bit special.
This is the real first post on this blog. The old page was stale and mostly just a place to give my contact info. The new website should help my business. What I want from this blog:
a place to collect my thoughts
note some tips/tricks for future reference
give a chance to prospective clients to know how I think
get some page rank and inbound links to my websites
All this can be achieved with some extra work:
I have to keep this blog updated (an estimated 60% to 80% of the blogs are abandoned or not updated in the first two months)
maintain another application on this server
fight blog spam
write coherent and intelligent posts in English
I have zero readers, zero page rank and zero interesting posts. I hope the situation will be better in year from now.