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Work equipment

I’ve finally got it all set up.

Bought a brand new computer, but the really interesting news is the beautiful dual screen setup. Two 19 Inch LCD monitors, how I’ve been surviving with two huge CRT monitors I don’t know! No more headaches for me!

I went for two of these:
http://www.dealtime.co.uk/xPF-Philips-190S7FS-Silver

And would certainly recommend them. I have one with a VGA cable and one with a DVI-D cable – but actually, the picture quality is almost identical between the two, that’s how good these monitors are.

I didn’t go for widescreen monitors as the two together give plenty of width, but widescreen wouldn’t give much height, and you need that for comfortable on screen reading.

And believe me, it is worth it. Any self respecting programmed NEEDS dual!

Of course, it your really extravagant you could always splash out on three, four or even eight monitors…: (http://digitaltigers.com/zenview.shtml?gclid=CK3fsN77iowCFQvtlAodbHIg3g)

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The lights are out but there is someone home.

Yesterday will officially be called “Powercut” day from now on, at least around oxfordshire anyway. High winds knocked several trees over on to the pylons producing a spectacular, if brief, display of lights.

Unfortunately (snigger, snigger) my office had no power so there was little work that could be done. “Why doesn’t everyone go home now”, eventually came after waiting an hour, “well OK” , I said, “I think there’s work I can be doing at home anyway” (snigger, snigger).

So, I get in my car and “Top 10 at 10” is playing on the radio and it starts with “Fantastic Day” by Haircut100, and I find my self think this really is a great day, (at least from my perspective), I get to go home on a work day, a free holiday if you will, and no one pestering my with questions of demands and I’m getting payed for it.

Then the thought of all the power that would have been used during this day hit me, so how much was that:
there was about 45’000 house holds without power (from here: bbc news)
Average emissons from home electricity use 1693.62 kg of CO2 per year (from here: Scottish electricty couldn’t find english one)
Which is about 4.5 kg per day, now we have to assume that some houses had their electricity back quicker than others, so lets say each house had on average no power for half a day.

So our total carbon saving number is = 45’000 * (4.5 kg * 0.5)
thats 5000 kgs of carbon not sent into the atmosphere (Or more than three households woth of carbon)

Not bad, but really a drop in the ocean, what we really need is more powercuts… (enter the “Ecowarriors”?)

Note, that this is just a bit of fun. (I doubt any of this is accurate!)

#flag: Powercut, “Day of work”, “Carbon saving”

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I name ye "David"…

Got a surprise at work yesterday. There was a name the guy (and girl) competition at work and my suggestion won!

The guy and girl are puppets who are burned on a bonfire.

Here’s my winning suggestion:

Yep that’s the names “David and Victoria Bake-em”!

#flag: Work

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August

Well, I’ve been slacking again, no post for several weeks.

Apparently July has been the hottest month ever (since records began anyway), and I mean the hottest of any month, not just the July ones… I really should get around to finishing my Green website… but SO busy…

Work is also offering some new challenges, I’m currently working on Flash, I’m supposed to be creating a installer menu thing, but actually I’m just playing with it – I’ve never used it before!

OU work is also catching up on me, I’m supposed to finish reading a 300 page assignment book by end of August… which now seems pretty impossible… still, I’m sure I’ll be able to blag it! :0)

Also, around bank holiday in August I’m going camping and surfing – really looking forward to the surfing… not so sure about the camping… I’m going here.

#flag: work, OU, camping, green, links

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Job

So I’ve got a new job!

Well actually I’ve got the job I’ve been doing for the last six months but still – at least its official now. And I got a bit of a payrise to, which is nothing bad.

I had to do a couple of graduate tests first – they test your english then you Maths skills – then I had to take a two hour interview which included a 15 minute presentation about a project I had done. (They give you 30 minutes before hand to get something ready – thats just about a enough time to write a few notes and scribble a few words on a flipchart…) But actually I think it went pretty well – well they employed me in the end so I guess I couldn’t have been that bad!

The one thing that does worry me though is the time some of the people have been there. 10, 15, 20 years… do I really want to be in the same thing for that long… I’ll just have to watch out!

#Flag: Job, interview

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Out of the office

On the request of my company, I’ve been taking a course in C#. And actually, I’ve quite enjoyed it. The full course title was: “Developing Applications with the .NET Framework using C#” – rather catchy, no? I went with a company called QA and I can highly recommend them, at least for the course I was on anyway.

The course taught, .Net (forms applications), ASP.Net (web forms applications) and ADO.NET (database driven applications). It was quite interesting and enjoyable, and I left that little bit more knowledgeable. The course can be found here, and just so you know, I went to Swindon QA.

(I wouldn’t recommend driving there every morning from Oxford though! It was taking me 1.5 hours to drive the 30 miles to Swindon… I hate traffic… especially when its dark and you can hardly see the road for the glare of the on coming traffic… but that’s another story…)

Now I’ve got my certificate of completion I think I’m virtually guaranteed a pay rise when I get back to work on Monday… Not. (Which is actually tomorrow – the weekend goes so quickly….) But at least I’ll be working on some new stuff when I get back to work, I can hardly wait…

#flag: course, QA, link, works

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Somethings about me: Work

So I thought it was about time I told you a bit more about me. So here I am…

I’ve been working as a computer programming for about six years now (although I prefer the terms “Coder” as it sounds cool or “Software Engineer” as it sounds really professional!

I’m currently working for a company who produces educational software, I’m a bit nervous about revealing the name so I’m not going to, but I will say its a rather large company employing around 1200 people, and has produced many different educational programs for UK schools.

Currently I’m working on an interface to a 3D engine that will be used to teach Geography – imagine an island with just about every geographical feature you could imagine and you’ll get a good idea of what it looks like. It will be written in the programming language C# , I’m only just getting in to this, but I already think its great (at least for a programming language! ) and I’d recommend it to anyone.

#flag: “about me”, work, software

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Work post.

Well, finally got access to the Internet again, at work anyway. Dam, I miss it when I can’t use it.

Took first step in getting Broadband at home though, I got a BT phone line in, well actually I’ve had to wait four days for them to connect me, apparently it takes a lot of time to “Flick a switch”… The BT Line is costing me £10.50 a month and that’s the cheapest I could pay and remember that’s without paying for a broadband account.

I’ve just been looking at the broadband provider PlusNet – they seem to be comparatively cheap and highly recommended on ADSL Guide – so if no-one else has any suggestions I think I’ll go with them.

Back to work now.

#Flag: Broadband