Happily Imperfect October 2007

And slowly, it became right

Decluttering continues, hampered only by a sudden lack of interest. I’m not surprised of course, that’s how it always is with me, all excited and raring to go at the start before… meh.. apathy and distractions.

One of which has been catching up with the latest travelogue from Michael Palin. It’s been fascinating to learn more about parts of Europe which I knew of, but knew nothing about. It is a very quick look at the culture, politics and beliefs of Eastern Europe, but well worth a look. I may also be watching series 2 of Heroes, but that would be naughty and illegally so can’t possibly be true (although the mexican girl is kinda cute, huh).

I’ve also managed to fix this site, after upgrading WordPress left me error strewn and kinda hacked off. Not a very good show that. However, having originally installed WordPress in a sub-directory all I did was install it at the root, shift some plugins and my theme, et voila! All is working and I can maybe get on with some of the tweaks I had in mind (that fecking Sidebar for one thing).

The other blog is still taking some time mind you, and I’m still slowly building an audience. In saying that, the audience here isn’t that big, and took 6 years, or so, to build so I guess I shouldn’t be in so much of a hurry.

I’m still ripping CDs, only another 100 or so to go. It’s quite good fun actually, ‘rediscovering’ some old favourites and ‘discovering’ some gems I’d completely forgotten I’d purchased.

Right, I’ve got physio exercises to do, a little work to finish off (the downside of now working close to Louise is that I’m not curtailed by her working hours, but the upside MORE than makes up for that), and possibly another stab at Portal. I don’t play many games on the computer, but it’s quite catchy. The opening levels are easy, all of 20 mins to get to level 15, but I hear the last level is what it’s all about, so I’ll get to that point tonight before, hopefully, getting a reasonably early night (now where have I heard that one before?).

October 24, 2007

Google Docs

Make my living writing software documentation. There is, of course, much more to it than that, but that remains the bulk of the job. I also write as a hobby, both on this blog and on my other more personal blog. I also maintain a third website although that has been somewhat neglected recently (note to self: get the finger out!).

Suffice to say I write a lot.

In addition to that I have also adopted what is increasingly known as ‘web worker’ tendencies. As I work with, and on, computers it is simple enough to switch between different tasks, and the web is a key part of that working practise.

And the key part of that practise, for me, is Google Docs. The ability to import and export to Word, to easily maintain the content in relevant folders, and of course the ability to access and edit the content from any PC… well it’s almost a no-brainer.

But one thing that I’ve recently found useful, is the ability to share the documents, allowing others to view and edit them. Admittedly it was only between two people, but if you have a small team, or are working on a project that spans the globe (something that is increasingly common these days) then it’s worth having a look at Google Docs.

October 23, 2007

Vastus Lateralis

I have a weak vastus lateralis and a sore knee!

The physio lady was very nice, chatty, friendly and didn’t have cold hands at all. She was a complete bitch.

After some questions about how I got the injury and some gentle prodding and pushing of the area around my knee, she asked me to pull my toes back, tense the muscles in my leg, and lift it up off the bed. Standing to one side, she put one arm under my leg, just behind my knee, and told me to try and stop my leg from bending whilst she pushed down on the lower half of my leg.

After punching her repeatedly in the face she finally stopped.

Actually it wasn’t that bad, but my knee is noticeably sore, although she did warn me about that. During the initial questions I remarked that the pain was around a 3 or 4, but about 8 when the doctor pushed the sore bit. When I commented that, of course, that was what doctors do and she looked up from the chart she was scribbling on to warn me that “ohhh Physios are much worse”.

So, it turns out that because the muscle on the inside of my left knee isn’t as strong as it should be, then running has been ‘pushing’ my kneecap to and fro, which has caused the inflammation (the sore bit) and a little scar tissue under the kneecap. Strengthening the knee around that area should stop this from happening, so I have a couple of exercises to do until my next appointment.

Which is about what I expected, the exercises that is, not the weak muscle thing. That I can probably trace back to damaging my knee during a hike many many moons ago, and which still causes me to walk a little funny, which in turn is probably more pronounced when I run. It’s obvious when you think about it…

So, exercises from the physio will be added to the “soon to be started” regime of general core strengthening stuff, and possibly even a little pilates or somesuch. I won’t be going running any time soon, but when I do I want to be lighter, stronger and more flexible.

And I figure if I say it on here, then at the very least there will be an element of public shame if I don’t stick to said regime.

Now, pass the doughnuts. What? The diet starts TOMORROW…

October 23, 2007

Decluttery

Well I didn’t get half the stuff I’d hoped to get done but made a start at the “Big Declutter”. Two bin bags for the skip, one for the charity shop and I’m not even halfway through.

The whole thing has come about because of the big smile that now appears on the face of my wife. Now that I am no longer worrying about her state of mind I have had time to take a step back and take stock.

The year started well for us, a new job for me certainly got me more motivated professionally, and that new found enthusiasm rubbed off at home. I got more organised, more focussed and started some of those long standing little projects that every homeowner has, the kind of thing that isn’t a big job but just needs done, you know the sort.

It is amazing how the human mind works. At her previous job… well I don’t want to say to much, but let’s just say that I think things were going downhill a little (a dip at least) and the management didn’t really handle it all that well. But then, if you don’t realise that the people who work for you need to be encouraged, motivated and treated like adults, then you deserve all you get. Treating any employee like a child and then falling back on that age old “bad manager” trait of blaming things on one person (when is anything EVER the fault of one person?) whilst willfully ignoring the flaws of others and.. well I’ll stop there as it’s not really my place to say anything else (suffice to say that I was very closing to popping in to the office on more than one occasion).

Anyhoo.

So, with Louise now working for a company that appreciates her hard work and honesty, and returning home with a smile on her face, we are both taking this as an opportunity to start over… a little. First steps are to clear the house of unused and unneeded ‘stuff’, part of that includes finally ripping the rest of my CDs to MP3, and the rest of it will go to charity, onto eBay, or to the dump.

I quite enjoy this kind of thing, it can be hugely liberating clearing out drawers and possessions. Shelves will be tidied, cupboards re-arranged, and I might even have a go at clearing out the loft (rather than just shifting everything up there). I may also consider clearing out some books… but still not sure about that, that may be a step too far.

October 21, 2007

A few days of misc

OK, a conscious decision to not think about this blog has meant a fair amount of stuff is getting ‘done’. But I won’t bore you with the minutiae of the past few days as it mainly consisted of shuffling stuff about (mainly into loft), a fair amount of tidying up, a large amount of throwing crap out, and a growing pile of stuff to be “put in car to take to charity shop”. You know how it is.

Aside from that a few things have floated to the top of the pool of things “to be considered”, whilst others have merely skimmed the surface leaving only minor ripples in … yeah, enough of that..

Some thoughts from the past few days:

I am really REALLY beginning to miss running, starting physio on knee next week, and dieting has started (ish). Hoping to lose weight, tone up, and whatnot before I start pounding the pavement again. Considering not running until next year to give me a chance to improve other areas first. Thoughts?
Hard drive enclosures – I have two large hard drives sitting dormant in my old PC. Whilst looking for enclosures I spotted some ‘media capable’ ones with various outputs and gubbins. Anyone got something like this? Is it worth it? I’m thinking: download TV episode in HD, copy to media enclosure, watch on HD TV. Yay or nay?
Bluetooth mouse – I am still loving the MacBook (alas I can’t make it my main machine) but have never enjoyed using a trackpad. So I’m in the market for a bluetooth mouse. A quick Google found me the Logitech V270 which looks OK but, of course, I’d love to hear your suggestions. No cables please (duh), and I need two buttons!
Leopard – new version of the Apple operating system out on 26th of this month. £80 from Amazon.
Speaking of paying, after downloading In Rainbows for £0.00, I’ve since been back to offer the princely sum of £7.43. I think that’s fair.
Ohh yeah, I’m now, as of Wednesday, 34. Birthdays are becoming increasingly pointless, I think my 35th may be the last I acknowledge (more on this later).
Cape Apple and Mango juice is delicious. Alas the packaging is cack and it’s impossible to pour it without “glugging” and splashing juice all over the place. Me does not like wiping up in the morning (wait, that sounds worse than it is…).
Linux – old PC lying dormant (see point 1), so maybe a chance to play with.. Ubuntu? No idea where to start though, pointers welcomed.
This weekend will continue the decluttering and should see me finally finished with ripping all my CDs to MP3 and most of them will be stashed in the loft. That means I’ll have 6 Benno CD towers (from IKEA) which I would like to find a use for… creative suggestions welcomed.

Normal service will be resumed at some point, although I do have another blog you know, and I am still twittering away like an idiot.

October 18, 2007

Jack of all trades Pt. 2

My name is Gordon McLean, I am a Technical Communicator* and I am proud to be a jack of all trades.

I recall once being asked to breakdown all the skills required to be a Technical Writer, and then to provide a list of daily work tasks. The list of skills was to be used as part of a skills/training matrix, and the work tasks were to be mapped to a timesheet system.

At first I concentrated solely on the Technical Writers role, but even then you need to wear a number of hats; researcher, analyst, information architect, publisher, indexer, illustrator, proof-reader, editor… ohh and writer. All of those are unique job roles in some places yet, as a Technical Writer, you need to be able to successfully take on those roles to some degree. In most software companies a large part of the job is learning the new features, and as you have access to early builds, you are frequently also playing the part of ad-hoc tester. Admittedly you are usually only testing one scenario, and that scenario is the happy path that will be documented, but a bug is a bug and that means being able to identify one, discuss it with a tester or developer, or both, and why not log it as well?

If you are documenting an API or developer toolkit then, in those instances, you frequently don the cap of novice developer, asking the questions you expect them to ask, before switching caps to presume the role of an experienced developer and wondering if the information you are providing is too simple for them to use or if, perhaps, the structure of the information needs altered.

You need to be able to talk to developers and so you need to know a little about whichever code language they are working with, that way when they mention methods, you can ask whether they mean static or instance.

None of these skills/roles are the core part of a Technical Writers job, but simply additional strings to your bow. The more you know about everything, the more value you can add, so long as you don’t let that detract from your core responsibility, to provide documentation. However, the more you know about everything, the better that documentation will be and the higher your value will soar.

—

Prompted by The Top 5 Reasons to be a Jack of all Trades

* Communicator/Writer/Author, pick one. I favour ‘communicator’ because I don’t always communicate through writing, sometimes through UI design, sometimes through infographics and diagrams. You get the picture (pun intended!).

October 18, 2007