[IRL] Wattup?

Busy working, which is good. Loving it.

Outside of work it’s been family stuff, reading and a light smattering of gaming.

Last week I completed Starcraft 2′s Heart of the Swarm expansion. It was pretty good, though short if you’re only into it for the single player. Well done though and pretty stable. No problems logging in to play – unlike some other game which I avoided entirely.

Been playing a little WoW. Started leveling my Deathknight to 90, but stopped and switched back to my Warrior who I leveled up to 85 before Christmas – which was the last time I played prior to poking around with the Deathknight. It’s been fun. I like the Warrior’s flow, pace and durability. While the Rogue and the Hunter have a number of escapes, not quite for the Warrior. Oh, you can great leap away or pop up that 100% parry buff but you still have to high-tail it to get out of combat. I like the impact of the class – feels very solid. Playing Arms.

Prior to that I was playing around with Mass Effect 3 multiplayer with a guy from work. It’s fun, but there is little point to it other than it inflating your Readiness in the single player, achievements (which I don’t tend to chase) and the short bouts of fun shooting enemies cooperatively. I did do a complete play through of Mass Effect 1, playing as an Engineer. Imported to Mass Effect 2 which I played through as well. And finally into Mass Effect 3 where it was awesome to see the impact of all the decisions I made throughout the games. If you haven’t played through then you get a lot of the default decisions or characters which means you have some tougher choices – usually one thing against another. If you played all the way through and your crew from the second Mass Effect survived then they’re present to turn those tough choices into positives. Pretty cool.

Otherwise I’ve been reading, watching some training videos on C# and taking a peek into ASP.NET MVC and a little fiddling with WPF (making a little Minecraft properties app for the kids to use with their server).

Fun times – no time for blogging except when I make the time. Sorry folks!

MMOs I’m eyeballing: Neverwinter and The Elder Scrolls Online.

Neverwinter has my interest because it’s free-to-play and has a toolset. The toolset doesn’t look to be all that powerful but it might be fun to play with. If there is any investment required, I’ll pass. Sounds horrible, but it’s the difference between them not getting my money or having a chance to convince me to invest.

For TESO I have a lot of reservations about how well Bethesda will be able to create a decent scale-able system for just about everything; levels, crafting, gear, dungeons, enemies – really, just about everything. Their single player games are just so fragile as far as balance goes, I worry it’ll be a game filled with flavor of the month type builds.

Playing some XBox 360 lately too. Black Ops 2 Zombies with the kids, some Borderlands 2, a bit of Crysis 3 and lately some Fallout New Vegas. It’s been fun. I may have already mentioned it, but I’m shifting the kids more towards console gaming – buying one copy of the game and both of them being able to play it just makes more sense than trying to maintain multiple PC copies through Steam or Origin or whatever distribution software the game uses.

Out!

[IRL] Kobo Lives!

The other day I was rushing to get the kids out to their daycare. I made my lunch stuffed my Kobo Reader into the lunch bag (it has a nice pocket for that) then put the bag on the kitchen table. I rush the kids, keep them moving, get them out the door with snowpants, school bags, hats, gloves, neck warmers, and clear off the car. Drop them off at the sitter’s place then drive off to work. After a little struggle through traffic, I get to work, reach over to the passenger side to get my lunch bag… it’s not there.

Crap.

No big deal, I’ll just buy a lunch.

I get home later that evening (later than usually – I’m working a little late to deliver an ‘automated build delivery system’) and find my lunch bag in the fridge. Good thinking on TheWife’s part – preserve my lunch for the next day. I check the pocket and there is my Kobo Reader, nice and cold… and fresh.

It still worked too.

I love my Kobo.

[IRL] Happy Holidays

Better late than never so Happy Holidays and Happy new Year to people that celebrate that stuff.

Grrr. F snow. I asked for it and I got it, now I don’t wants it.

[ROT] Post Pacing

I know some people are surprised to see a volley of posts from me, but that’s the way it’s going to be. When the mood strikes me I’ll throw up (see what I did there?) some posts in the time I have available to do so, catching people (who don’t care) up on what’s going on in my world.

I know some other people are suggesting I schedule the posts out to appear throughout the week. To that I say, “Schedule out your reading of my many posts over the week and it’ll feel like I’m posting once per day!” Really, I’m too lazy to set up a schedule for all these posts.

I can’t guarantee regularity so I’ll post when I can and you’ll like it! (Just think, you can tell your grandchildren about how back in your day you suffered through long spans of not having my posts to read!)

 

Back in my day, Smaken only posted once every couple of months and when he did, it was a deluge of posts burying you in words on the screen to the point of suffocation! And you liked it! You kids these days with your tweets, video streams and instant gratification…

 

That link is moderately safe for a liberal place of work and too priceless to not post.

[IRL] The Long Con

I don’t mean one that takes a few years to set up, I mean the one that takes 13 years of love, commitment and getting in deep with someone.

That’s right, coming up soon is my 13th Anniversary with TheWife! I’ve managed to con her into marrying me and staying around for a whole teenager worth in years!

MOUAHAHAHA!

Clearly she’s the better half of the relationship who will be filing for sainthood shortly.

[IRL] Good Stuff Happening

I don’t know why it surprises me when it happens but it always does. I always find myself in a position where I’m not just working on one product but two (or three). Clearly my brilliance is evident to others but I just don’t see it. The stuff I do simply makes sense. I’m not sure why it surprises people.

I think I mentioned I was promoted into an Architect position for the QA (testing) team. I currently sit between two products directing the creation of their automation. One has a long standing automation infrastructure which had samples of intelligence buried under bandages and duct tape that has long since given way and is now using old bubble gum as an adhesive. It’s getting fixed. The team (which is a team now, not just me and the other guy) is working hard at it. They know what needs to be done and they’re working on it when they can while moving things forward. I’m pleased with where things are going.

The other team was going down the route new automation teams tend to go – just get it done! It’s only testing! Record and playback works! Look at all the tests we’ve automated! Wheeeeeee!

Yeah.  No.

Plan out your automation, investigate options early and with heavy involvement with the development team. They’re going to be writing code that you’re going to be writing code to mimic a user against – if they’re using code that won’t work with any automation tool out there, you’re starting off in a bad spot (“stuck between a rock and a crazy place” to quote Big Bang Theory). Consider your target audience, size of the team, willingness to expand and skill sets on hand. Maybe your team leverages test cases created by QA and automates them. Maybe the team puts some sort of infrastructure in place where the framework interprets what QA wants (keyword driven) or maybe the automation team builds  library for others to use.

Speaking of skill sets, you want programmers otherwise you’ll end up with a bunch of QA people creating a bunch of recorded scripts that will break as soon as you change the URL to the webserver or move something like a log in around. Heaven forbid you do a UI revamp. All those scripts are going to have to be recorded all over again.

Always investigate the coding options of automation tools; don’t even let the sales team table the record and playback functionality – you don’t want that.

Why? Well, record and playback tools do not allow for modular code (yet). They might break steps into functions but they don’t call those functions again or from another script. Imagine you have over 100 scripts and each one starts with logging in as a specific user – maybe the same user, maybe a different one. What happens if you have to change the user? The password? The procedure to log in? That last one means changing 100 scripts. Sure, you can do a find replace in files or a bunch of copy/pastes but why should you when you could have that log in code centralized in a library of methods to interact with your product? One method or function – 100 scripts calling it. Log in changes? No worries, change the steps in the method/function and no need to change the 100 scripts.

That’s the sort of thing you don’t think about or consider with record and playback tools.

Another thing record and playback tend to miss is a verify/validation step. Sure you just recorded a script that successfully added a user to a database… but are you sure? Did you record checking? Does the tool include a means of ‘looking’ at a value to ensure it’s there? Ensure there is only one? You’d be really surprised at how many record and playback tools do not have that.

What about reporting? Yeah, that’s a pretty result to give me, the person running the test but it means nothing to my manager or my manager’s manager or the product manager. What about previous results? What about results for the same test in older versions? Again, not something built in to these tools.

Let’s not forget source control for all this code, possibly some of the collateral as well. You don’t want to lose it and it serves no one if Ted has all the latest stuff while Nancy doesn’t and is writing scripts based on old code that doesn’t work. You need it central, shared and backed up. Source control – use it.

That’s where I’m at with the other team. I’m pushing them away from the bad and into the good.

And they’re doing a great job of it – really!

So that’s where I’m at. Work work work.

Though they did give me a raise to go along with the new position and I’m no longer on probation.

I’m feeling good

[ROT] Dear AMD,

I’m trying to upgrade the drivers for my Radeon HD 5850 card but every attempt fails horribly.

If I uninstall the default MS Certified driver that loads in (it is from 2009) then try any of the recent AMD Catalyst packages it fails to even find the hardware.

If I leave the MS Certified driver on then try your AMD Catalyst package it realizes a new driver should be installed and installs it… poorly. On reboot it loads up in worse shape than if I had no driver installed at all.

Good job.

I tried calling tech support but your hours didn’t offer 24/7 support or if you do have that support, it’s not listed anywhere obvious like under the “Contact Us” section.

I then went to your web form to report the issue – because I like firing information off into the void and never hearing back from it – but while trying to pick the issue from the drop down, there wasn’t an option that sufficiently described my issue: Your drivers suck ass now, please address.

Thank you,

A new nVidia supporter.

In all fairness, I realize this is an older card, but when I run their application which is supposed to autodetect my card and download the drivers for me, it grabs the same ones that aren’t working. I’m now in a state where I can’t install the ones that did previously work.

I’m in no mood to do an entirely fresh install of the OS (I really shouldn’t have to) so I figure I’ll yank the card out, perform an Irish jig on it then pop in a new nVidia card.

Sad thing is that driver support used to be so much better. You could easily find and download just the driver you wanted without all the bullshit getting rammed down your pipeline.

 

[IRL] Ogre Card Revoked!

The LBO lost his Ogre Card this weekend. He was overtly nice by buying ice cream for himself, his little brother and two of his little brother’s friends with his own money earned by delivering flyers.

I was somewhat surprised by his generosity, especially given that he’s trying to save up that money to spend it on virtual goods – which I’m totally against, but if he’s going to work hard and earn it, he can choose where to spend it.

I’ve explained to him at length I don’t agree and think he’d be better off spending his money on things that will last and are somewhat more tangible. I showed him catalogs with items listing what he could buy with the amount he wants to spend ($200); various electronics, games, music, books or even toys. Things that he’ll own and won’t go away like what would happen if the game he wants to buy virtual goods in shuts down.

It’ll take him half a year to earn that much by delivering flyers, I’m sort of hoping he’ll outgrow the desire to spend on that, but we’ll see. The fact that he decided to buy some ice cream (setting him back a couple of weeks) is king of cool. Yeah it’s junk food but it was a pretty cool big brother thing to do.

And totally unogrely… ish.

[IRL] Give and Take…

I’m all for a little give and take, but I draw the line at shit. Giving someone shit while taking a shit – I wouldn’t do it. I’d be too worried about dropping my cell.

I won’t say where this thought came up for fear of embarrassing a co-worker.

And, yes, I know.

[D3] They Just Don’t Listen

I said previously they desperately need to allow for offline mode for D3 because having to be connected to B.Net to play is B.Shit. You don’t need to be connected to B.Net for SC2, why for D3?

DRM? DRM which really only stops the folks that wouldn’t normally go that route anyway.

Social media? Fuck social media – where’s my choice of being a hermit and not wanting to be connected? I barely use Facebook – it’s full of losers looking for approval or pitty – and Twitter lasted five minutes before I uninstalled it followed up with a, “OMG, who fucken cares that you have a muffin? Noise pollution.”

People have been waiting 10+ years for this game and on opening day its availability is up and down like a hyperactive child with a pogo-stick.

Again… offline mode would have prevented all the crazy posts on the forums and irate fans.

You kids get off my lawn… and turn down that damn noise you call music!