Lost!

So, I have a mother in law, (who I love) but we’re at opposite ends of the spectrum, in terms of technology. My father in law, however, is more geeky than me. Well, my mother in law collects odds and ends from around the area and one of the things she collects is snowmen. I figured I’d get her something to plug into her laptop and they could both laugh about it….

Sure, it has some annoying sounds, the light could cause some people to want to kill someone and it just wastes a USB port, but hey - ya gotta have some fun these days!

Oh, and am I the only one that can’t stand the fact that Christmas music is already being played in some places?

I don’t know if anyone else is having this problem or not, but I’m virtually drowning in recruiting email. I have seriously received 8 attempts in the last 12 hours. I’ve deleted another 8 since Friday.

Last 12 hours: Continue reading…

For as nice as it is, Trac is really a pain to install. If you don’t know what Trac is it’s a bug tracking database and a few things all rolled into one.

Why is it a pain to install?

• If you’re on a shared web server, you can pretty much forget getting it installed unless many customers ask for it all at once - not going to happen.
• Trac requires Python to be installed (not that bad), but then there are several other packages that must be installed. This all leads to time in front of a terminal window watching the screen scroll by. It also ads security issues if you don’t keep your system up to date. (The quick and dirty is that Linux based Operating Systems have the option to check on all the software installed and you usually have several security updates a month between all the software installed. You can do this on Windows as well, but Microsoft doesn’t release updates nearly as fast.)
• Almost every neat feature that is not part of Trac itself (syntax highlighting, wiki editing, etc) is one of the packages I just talked about. There are no plugins to just throw into some directory - its a big project.
• I lied: There are plugins, you just have to install another package (are you getting my point here???).
• Case in point on the “pain” comment above (taken directly from Trac’s website): The various available versions of these dependencies are not necessarily interchangeable, so please pay attention to the version numbers above. [Edgewall|Trac|Trac Install]
• Lastly, I’d have to upgrade Apache - now thats REALLY a pain.

Now, why does it have to be this way people? I’d install Bugzilla but you should see the list of Perl Modules required…. At this point, I think its almost easier to leave the bugs stay where they are…

Now, I do think Trac is a great application, I’ve used it on other sites before and I also watched the Trac Mailing list for over a year to look at how bug reports are. Its just really not for me. I’m in no mood to install more software that I really need to.

Anyone have any suggestions on a small bug tracking package? I’m not really in the mood for something as large as Trac or Bugzilla and I don’t need a project management database thrown into the mix… I just want the ability to view, edit, submit and close tickets - thats it.

A milestone for me… My PC World article happened to by the 100th I’ve published. Kind of funny actually.

Warning: This is a complete rant that was pounded out in 20 minutes…

I recently purchased a PC World to pass the time at the airport. They offered the “best upgrade solutions for your buck” and I figured I’d look it over since I have several computers that can be upgraded (it was more to pass the time.)

After opening it up, once again, I was disappointed by a beginners (idiots?) guide to upgrades. It explained that memory was a good bet, hard drive upgrades where good, but the kicker was the Graphics system… Continue reading…