First Impressions

So I’ve been using GoogleWave for a couple days now. Enough to get a bit of a first impression of it and see how it functions basically.

• The whole “see while you type” bit is cool and can be useful. What would be more useful? An option to turn it off. Some people just aren’t comfortable with that and I can understand. Seen more than a few people commenting on this, odds are we’ll see this option soon-ish. Although it really does bring me back to my ICQ days!
• Contacts are still buggy, sometimes have to log in and out to see new contacts listed. Tad annoying, but please let’s remember it’s still seriously under development.
• Wave is not really suited to IMing, except perhaps one on one in a private wave. Tried this out a few times and it’s alright.
  • It can be fun to muck about chatting in a thread with several ppl, but each time you add someone, with the inline threading, it can get really weird to follow. Good for abstract thinkers, a bit fail for the logical types. Personally I have fun with it
• People who try and say “Wave is for business project collab” are just seriously not thinking. I feel like I’ve been given this huge play ground where I can create whatever I want to try.

Aside from all the private Waves I have going, including a proper collab that is the discussion for the D&D game I plan on running via a Wave (see it’s called outside the box, it’s a brilliant place to be.) I’ve joined a few public waves. So far just TV show related ones, Dollhouse and SGU but they’re cool. Meet ppl from all over and chat with them.

Cool fact about Google Wave which really should just solidify it as awesome in everyone’s mind:

The name was inspired by the Firefly television series in which a Wave is an electronic communication (often consisting of a video call or video message)

The crash message of Wave being a popular quotation from the series: “Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!”.

So yeah, epic win. If that’s not enough…

Today I taught a bot some important truths of the universe:

It’s August… Update? or Flash?

Unless… in my little self-inflicted exile from the blog-techno-world, I missed an update to the Android OS on my HTC Dream we are still waiting on an update to fix that annoying SMS problem. Or it’s fixed and I haven’t noticed, which is a possibility… although you think I’d have noticed an update.

This annoying-ness has got me thinking about flashing my phone with another Android build. So what to use? Is it worth it? Am I putting my nice new phone at risk by messing with it? Probably… does that mean I won’t do it? Debateable.

Seriously though, the SMS text thing is just getting amazingly irritating. I don’t even really text much anymore… and while that may be because I tend to have Twitter conversations now, I will bet that part of it is because it’s annoying. I use that word a lot today.

So… if I was to attempt this. Which build will I use? Cyanogen was suggested to me by @Bytey, and seeing as word of mouth is how I make most of my tech-related choices there’s a good shot I’ll go with that one. That is, assuming I do this.

First step is to confirm a release didn’t happen while I wasn’t looking, which will be as simple as finding someone at Rogers who knows what I’m talking about. One second thought, this may be insanely difficult. Actually it’s not usually that bad, it’s worse when they call me asking where my payment is only to notice the second they pull up my account info that the payment was made in full, on time. Oh yeah… they are awesome.

Decisions, choices, what is a geek to do?

Wait out the update? or take this opportunity to flash my ROM with something different?

A few things I want to figure out first. Does doing this totally void my warranty? Can I go back? What are some problems with unofficial builds? Anyone with any insight is really encouraged to reply!!

My Official Geek Code

—- BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK—-
GO/S/FA d@ s–:+> a- C++(++++)>$ UL>P+ L++ E? W+++ N++ o+ K- w—
O? !M– V> !PS Y? PGP? t+ 5> X+++ R+> tv b++++>$ DI+
G++> e+ h- r% x?
——END GEEK CODE BLOCK—–

Alright so… thanks to @faltarego I have an official geek code. For those not “in the know” it’s a system of letters and variables to help us geeks identify eachother. Sadly it is out of date and many of my ?s I blame entirely on my age! If anyone knows of a more recent system for determining one’s geek code please let me know!

It’s a pretty awesome system tbh. If one understands all of it I could see it helping to learn a lot about the geek that it pertains to. Such as love of Star Trek, fashion sense, employment and even future goals!

When I feel up to the task, one day, I will create a newer more relevant Geek Code, and I plan on enlisting all my geek friends in the construction of such a code.

Got your own geek code? Post it here!!

Quest for Programming Language

So like any true geek I should be able to program. But I can’t… hope that doesn’t make me epic fail for anyone reading this. I get bonus points for trying though right? Well there’s a few languages I’ve come across.

@darkliquid suggested Ruby which seems like an interesting choice. It’s going for simple, there’s a fair amount of literature around. Or alternatively Python which I don’t know much about.

C and C+ are of course staples in the programming world and @bytey suggests that starting with the foundations is the best place to start. Seems fairly logical to me.

When have I ever been logical? Hehe.

What I want to do is learn a programming language that will help me design webpages, etc. The whole “I want to write the next hit game!” deal is tempting but I can accept the unrealistic nature of such a goal. Besides, I want to write the next hit novel, so I’ve got that whole fame thing totally covered

There’s probably a bajillion other languages I’ve not heard of or have and forgotten. If anyone reading this has any suggestions I would love to hear them. I really have no idea what I’m getting myself into.

With that in mind. I’ve settled atleast on what I want to start making. And that is a D&D character generator. Probably start with just a single race and expand from there. To that end I will start (as suggested by @bytey with learning about Jackson Structured Programming. When I asked him what I should learn about that his response? “Everything”. Thanks man… really helpful.

And so the path of the geek girl takes her into programming. Still have a lot to learn about linux command lines… so why not add more confusion?