Well headache is finally gone, and so far today things are going good - even got a call from family up in Washington State who invited our family up to Washington for Thanksgiving! Which could be fun, and I looked up rates for flying - $289 round trip! So something to set aside money for I think, of course going to see what the rest of the family is thinking, though if they aren’t, I might, be fun to spend a holiday with my dad’s family - I don’t get to see them that often.
Projects are going good - got the project me and Dan are working on setup on the server, no website just yet, but I am going to wrap up the loose ends of the database this afternoon/evening and get things online for tomorrow so they can offer pre-registration, so very excited, plus the owner of the site wants to give me more money next week, so thats a plus as well!
The kMan okay’d my price list, and I sent him a invoice of the work I’ve done thus far, no word back, but after lunch (which is beeping at me now), I am going to give him a buzz and see if I can get paid today or at the very least a good chunk of it as I need to get the ol bank account up and happy again (stupid budget!).
So far the press conference has been rather dull - the usual dribble from his Steveness - but below will be my upkeep of things:
Impressed
Refreshed Nano - Not Wonderful.. but ‘ok’
iPod Classic - Cheaper 80gb.. nice
Not Impressed
Ringtones for $0.99
Shuffle Colors - yay?
Colors of iPods
iPod Touch - Storage vs. Price
Final Update
Honestly, the biggest thing I was happy about is the “iPod Classic” refresh, 80GB for cheaper is nice, actually makes my budget happier, but the iPod Touch has a ways to go before it’s on my radar at all, as cool as it’s features are, just not up to par with the cost, and I don’t need widescreen video watching, iPod hooks up to the TV, got the cables, no worries.
So there it is, out of all the things they gave today, really only excited about the cheaper 80GB iPod and it’s enhancements to UI - so there ya have it… and for the record, I like posting blogs from Textmate - pretty simple
Well another day, another apple press conference - if there’s no iPod’s announced, then no big deal, I think I’ll still go snag a 80gb one - but then again, I may continue to wait a bit, not 100% sure, but such is my life as of late.
Had a nice chat on the phone yesterday about work, trying to nail down exactly what I am doing for the kMan, and make sure that I am not falling short of what he’s wanting but at the same time that I am not picking up more work than I should be, as there is a lot to do lately, and in the end my time as of late is very rare for free time it seems, but that in itself is a good thing.
New Billing system is going to be officially “purchased” this week, it’ll allow me to merge both billing and support into one package - I think though, I am going to keep myTT for doing 3rd party support long term, but if that isn’t really “jumping” then I am going to call that a wash and let the domain sit for a while as I think, all in all though the new billing system looks good, I want to do some more testing before I start importing folks, as well as make a universal simple theme for it aside from the built in one, something I never did with Modernbill, but the lucky billing system change is WHMCS - simple, clean, good customer access, and something I have been really wanting, customer affiliate system - I know there are add-on’s for ol MB but the move from 4.x->5.x looked to be a pain, and I just don’t want something TOO involved, while granted I am going to be doing a full audit and import folks one by one, it’s a needed thing that with any billing system I was going to need to do.
Anywhoo - writing this blog from Textmate, finally got around to playing with it’s blog feature (only owned it what 2 years now?) it’s pretty slick, granting when I hit post it posts I’ll probably post more once Apple’s press confrence is in motion or over, so we shall see what happens! Donations still welcomed!
Well my old old old old (insert additional old’s) keyboard was having some issues, just seemed to take more and more to get the thing to type, things like oh I don’t know “spacebar” decided on occasion not to work, or the E key would simply not work either - so after thinking about it and watching CompUSA (wanted to see it first) I decided to venture down and give the new Apple keyboard a demo, the feel is actually rather nice, I saw the new iMac’s and I must say - still not impressed, Apple makes nice stuff, but at the same time its the iMac, I had hoped for some innovation in the all-in-one design, but at least it had the keyboard attached for demo.
It is very nice, still haven’t done the apple keyboard update, requires me to reboot, and I have things running for a while, so I can’t really shut down just yet, but probably tomorrow - but all in all, it is a nice feel, sleek look, and things plug in really nicely. Now I just need a Mac Pro and 2 big monitors, and I am set!
Tomorrow flags a new day, some things on the todo include - some CSS, working to make a little “Client Preview” app to replace the ol static HTML, everything will run off a txt file and let me do updates a LOT faster vs. by hand editing some HTML code, all formatting will just work, once it’s done, its easy to update and then some - also the more pressing project is to finish the first run of the sign-up app, still fiddling with AJAX to do dynamic username lookups, but I may ditch that and do a secondary screen after failure that says “Your name was taken” and have them choose another, or simply pick the username first before they re-enter passwords and such 30 times.
So! I am going to wrap it up and call it a night, as much as I’d love to stay up I want to try and keep a semi-regular sleep schedule, granted it’ll be ruined tomorrow with the eclipse, and mars, but hey such is life but tomorrow I have a lot to get done, and more fun playing with the new billing system which I think will become the new backend for billing/support on FH - and soon will do the same for TN - joy joy
Anywhoo - have a good week folks, thanks for the prayers, im’s and kind donations - who hopefully this week will go well, and who knows, in time that ol iPod may be mine again. Night!
Yesterday was a whirl wind of a day, I went to bed at 7am, only to be woken up at 9:30am by a call, which then I was awake again, and no time to sneak in a real nap, I went to my lunch meeting, awesome stuff, good solid meeting, got some ground work laid out, and I got some upfront money, which is a nice infusion to the budget right now, this month was getting a bit tight there, but thankfully with that, and hopefully something else thats brewing in the sidelines, things will all work out.
Few folks have commented to me the other day they would like to see me with a iPod again, as I do miss the ol bugger, but still holding out, if this one gig works out (which I am praying does) then things all around get easier, get a nice apartment, get savings built back up, a nice touch of stability really - it’d be a lot of work, but in the end, what worthwhile isnt? So hopefully things pan out, a iPod budget forms, and I can enjoy delightful tunes
All in all things thus far this week have gone good, I am hoping for the trend to go the same thru today, and give me a nice relaxing Friday, but life is life ya just never know! But for now, I am going to do some database layout, both for short-term and long-term of this new project, have to map out a user database, I want to do a little ajax bit if possible to do dynamic username checking, so if someone types in “buttercup” it lets them know that is already taken without having to re-submit 30 times.
Well I just couldn’t stop, and in about 6 hours I have a meeting, LoL - I was up most of the night reading the 2nd book (363 page) finished it.. good stuff. Now if only I can get some sleep before this lunch meeting, that would be a good thing
Odd title, its what I aim for most of the time, so what’s gone down since yesterday? Well I know I need to get my last bits done, considering calling the cable company in the AM, just been busy busy - but the bank bit got finalized, took in my $2 and got the account squared away, $3 overage, $1 in the account, $2 in hand, and the gal closed it up nicely. Big stress off, then I said “It would of almost been easier to sign up at ING” - she replied “I would. I love ING” lol - I think that’s the plan - I may just end up canceling my personal account with WAMU, and just keep only my business banking there, and get the Orange Checking/Savings setup, and call it good - but I already have the savings underway, put in $15 for starters, going to try and put in at least $15 each month if not more.
Coding! Got me some HTML from mr. dan-o, going to fiddle with some code concepts for our meeting with this client, want to show him some roughs of what I have in my head, and let him see how it can flow - but thats pretty fun, I like concepts lately, I can lay some ground work, and the client can have some base functionality and I don’t have to code 3 days for a COMPLEX demo, I can give a workable bit, and then fill in the blanks later.
Murder close to home… this morning when I woke up I knew I had heard police sirens, but when I looked out the living room window, there was nothing, no cars, no trucks, quiet morning, went to work, thought nothing of it - then my neighbor called and said there were police near her house, though she lives across the street from me, I saw nothing still, so I put on sandals walked out, saw one, walked further, saw the entire top half of the street shut down, packed with police cars, police tape, etc. crazy crazy.
