The end of IT...

As of today I don't own any intellectual property that I have created for the past 4 years. #?!#?!?##?!#?!!!

I hate lawyers - not because they follow the law, but because they can fuck things up by writing generic, omnipotent and useless sentences that can mean billions of different things.

The best thing is - if you miss 1 word in the sentence - can mean that someone else can own everything you do, have done and will be doing in the future. If not specifically written that it only includes work done in the office/office hours it can mean that everything you do after hours/at home will not be yours. This means that you don't own anything that you create, so you don't have any right to license it under any license (this includes GPL). So whats the use of developing anything?!?!? Oh yeah - they own your first born also!

As I'm a Linux specialist, my world goes round and round around open source applications. Not having IP right to anything I create means:

I don't have right create/write/publish OSS software as I don't own it
I don't have right to publish patches to OSS software as the patch is my IP and it does not belong to me
I don't have right to publish ideas to create software and the ideas are IP and therefore not min

So what is left? Nothing actually - I can only report problems with software not the solutions to fix them. Living like a begger - at the expense of other people who must do all the work. Depressing!!! Like using windows - there you just don't have tools to make things better - you just have to live with them.

If software patents will be allowed here in Europe the end result will be like this! The same goes for the software developers as they wont be owning anything there fore the OSS will slowly fade away and we are back in the days of hackers. Sure the technology is bit more advanced but the principle is the same - for good or evil no one is secure!

The other downside of not having any IP rights is motivation - or the lack of it. If you know you cant do anything useful why bother doing anything?

I guess I have to find a hobby now...

Oh well.. Have to look a new job or hope that they restore my free time IP rights... Gee... That could take long... Lets see witch come first...

In the meanwhile - living in Elbonia is not that bad..

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Flock 1.1 broken... Really broken...

I have been a Flock user for a long time (since 0.5 version - thats around 2..3 years back). The reason I like Flock is, its basically Firefox (Mozilla Gecko core) but with a different spin. The interface is designed to look sleek (yes I know FF has themes and add-ons to change its looks and do the same), but the whole interface is kinda well designed. I can't put my finger on what is that that is soo good, but it feels good.

The second thing that makes it fantastic is that it is blogging centric. This means it has a nice RSS feed menu where you can keep tabs on the world without cruising around the net and trying to read _ALL_ the information you are seeing. This will get tiresome when trying track the latest news on sites like Slashdot, TechCrunch, CrunchGear and the New Scientist, as they can produce over 100 articles a day. And some you want to know and some you don't - so getting a general view is important as you just can't read them all.

Starting from version 0.7 they also implemented a blogging interface through Typepad and Blogger API-s. So this made reading new and writing about them easier - no more copy/paste and formating in a small text area!

When the 0.9 came out - it was disappointing - they destroyed the nice sleek design when they removed the groupings. To compensate this they added auto-pinger functionality to RSS aggregators. Oh well - Yo loose some, You win some - no big loss.

When the upgrade to the "great" 1.0 release came out I was cautious as 0.7 -> 0.9 update removed some nice features, but it went pretty well. No new functionality for me as I don't use Facebook and flicker, so no big deal.

But like all good things - they end! The last good version of Flock was 1.0.9.

The 1.1 update came out last Thursday (if I remember correctly). And guess what? The RSS was broken and the blogging interface didn't work. Err... The one thing that makes Flock unique for me! I don't give crap about a gmail/yahoo service API-s that are included in the new 1.1! The gmail has a nice graphical web front end and it also provides IMAP/POP3 support! Was that crappy change worth compromising the whole application?!?!?! God damn - write a plug in for it if you _REALLY_ need it - why is it so important to add it to Flock core?!?!?

The problem is described here and here and the "possible" solution will be out in the version 1.1.1, but then again - as it seems the be the issue with Linux _MOSTLY_ so I'm not confident that they can figure it out so soon.

No matter if you upgrade or do a fresh install the RSS is dead as is blogging. So here is a link to download the working 1.0.9 version (and believe me - it was not easy to find as there is no English version here).

The last frustrating thing that hit me - after getting the older version up and running it wanted to UPDATE it as by default I have had that updates are downloaded automatically (I'm lazy and do not want to waste my time manually looking for updates). CRAP - I just got it running and it will be messed up again... ARGH... Never again I will let it update its core automatically!!

So I went to the flock folder and there it was - 1.1 update - in the updates/0/ folder. I deleted the 0 folder and did a "chmod 000 updates" and "chown root:root updates". No More Updates!!! Well until I can test the updates on some expendable account.

The last thing that really pissed me off was the update dialog asking me if I would make Flock as my default browser? Never - as in the future there can be updates that are not compatible with the older versions as happened with Firefox 0.x -> 1.x, 1.x->2.x and that will happen with 2.x ->3.x. This may not be a real problem, but just a testing/OS glitch, but still - once such a mistake will be released, building up the trust again will take long time.

PS! In the FAQ and changelog are lots and lots of hints about whats all wrong with the vista release - FORGET THE VISTA. It's stillborn OS. It will never go live - Windows 7 will be out first. Its like windows 98 was. Windows 95/NT were fine (at the time) - Windows ME was stillborn - Windows 2k was Fine - Windows SE was stillborn - Windows XP/2k3 was fine - Windows Vista/Longhorn are stillborn - next thing to look forward is Windows 7 and Windows server 2k8. So stop trying to morph the the applications on it!! The hoops you need to jump though are not worth it.

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Time of Tides..

Why are not things ever easy? Well if you have a short low tide it is survivable, but I have been on the low end for about 1.5 months for now and it seems I haven't reached the bottom yet...

This year started with moving - that means our IT has been split apart - as in 2 - as in our part has been moved out to a separate location. Ok, this in theory does not mean much - IT can work anywhere right? Well that is the theory at least. In practice it the picture is not that bright. When we all were in one place (an I mean the other half of the IT and business side) everything was one big happy family. Sure we had our little fights like in all big families, but we held together when things became tough. Now... I feel like a reject - separated. Before the split - when someone had a problem, they came and talked about a problem or asked for an advice or recommendations. Now - they just call and ask how long it would take to fix a problem, or what to do. There is no more personal touch - on phone its just business and no personal touch. So in long term we start to separate from the rest. Sure, the work will go on and in theory nothing is changed as all the servers and test systems migrated with me, but it lacks the personal touch of talking to a person face to face. Problems that usually were fixable in 10 minutes take longer as the outcome is not that important as the result wont be personal (if there will be any result at all). When you don't have the possibility that someone will come to your cubicle and tell you that "Nice job, well, done.", or "WTF did you do - nothing works now" the priority of the work becomes lower and lower and the distance you take from the people becomes greater and greater. This means that at some point in time the work becomes minuscule - without the rewards that come with direct communication. This will create the feeling of separation and it will create a closed commune of people who take the jobs and problems of the people with who you have direct contact to the highest priority as for the jobs that should be done are far away and therefore seem minuscule.

This is really different from remote working as you have close coworkers next to you instead sitting alone at home. When you work remotely you have a feeling of being one of the people in the group but being physically alone you enjoy the feeling of working together with other people - you feel important. The key to success is being alone. But enough of this. I have around 40% of my test setup set up in my new environment and the percentage should come up as time progresses.

My department ( 6 people -1) was given our own room and allowed to redesign it as we saw fit (with limitations of course - we could use the predefined furniture and cabinets that were available). The design came out pretty well. The first impressions when the furniture was moved in were horrific. Everything was gray - the desk, the cabinets - just about everything was gray. Its like moving from 32bit color world to a 4 color gray world - it isn't pretty!!! But at the end our tables were colored green and it changed to look from the gray world to a pretty tolerable environment. Nice job Ants :)

The -1 is there because we lost one of our colleagues as of Monday. Best wishes to you Risto and hope the grass is greener in you new company.

This was just the beginning tho - the problems did not end there. In our room the ventilation does not work! This may not be a big problem with 6 people in the room, but when you add around 20..30 PC-s to that equation, you get a HOT environment. As the air is not moving fast enough, it creates pretty oppressive environment to work in. I as a smoker can go out and get some fresh air and can cool down while smoking, as to the nonsmokers have to sit and cook in that environment. The good news is that windows can be opened to vent the room, but the bad news is that under each window that opens, there is a person sitting under. So this makes a big problem when we have a windy weather as we can't open windows much. And guess what - I'm sitting next to the window, so I'm constantly getting cold air blowing to my back - not good.

11-12.02.08 I was in Sweden consulting and testing on a project I'm a member of. Everything is going steadily toward the deadline but not as fast as I expected. The people are nice and the transportation is fast. Well... except for Arlando Express (the express train that runs from Stockholm to Arlando airport. The normal time is 20 min guaranteed travel tine for each way. This was not the case on Tuesday tho. It took 60 minutes to travel from T-Centralen to Arlando - if we had got on the next Arlando Express we would not have made to our flight. And I managed to get a cold. Lets say that currently I'm not happy about the trip, but when I get well I guess I feel better about getting out of the normal work routine...

Thursday the 13 - it isn't Friday the 13 but just the 13. when going out for a smoke I saw that our new chairs are coming. After coming up I asked around on how the chairs will be distributed, as there were few chairs that were pretty nice (with neck support and all) and I received a response of first come first serve. So I and Priit went and got the last 2 of the fancy chairs sitting in the hallway. My joy of having a new and good chair was short. In the middle of lifting the chair to its final position something snapped in my spine (again) and the pain was pretty bad. Oh well this is not the end of the world as I have had problems lifting heavy things for the past 10 years - at least I got my new good chair in place! After about 15 minutes Ants came running in really agitated about someone taking the managers chairs! Well guess what - those 2 chairs were get were those. After some agitated discussion Priit gave up his chair. Also mine was taken, but it seemed that none of the managers were missing their chairs so for now I'm sitting in it. Waiting for the poor manager to show up and claim my chair. It feels like having an axe hanging on your head - just waiting it to fall down...

The worst about the chair thing is what Ants said in a heat of a moment. The line when ordering the chairs was drawn between manager and the regular workers. THIS IS THE ONE THING YOU NEVER SAY TO YOUR EMPLOYEE AND EXPECT HEM TO WORK. When reading between the lines the regular workers are scum that can sit on a cardboard box on whatever conditions without any care about worker health or safety. I know that Ants is under heavy pressure about the moving process and most things are forgivable, but this is where I draw my line. When under pressure take it like a man not blow up on people you expect to work in the future. So in tomorrows agenda I have a plan to print out 8 copies of leaving application. 2 for each level of management. My limit is getting pretty full on the crap I can take and at one point I will break. At least when I get to that point I can just take the application and start the process right up. No time to cool down just go with it - this removes the obstacle that someone can talk me around to work some more time until I reach the point again.

this turned out to be a biaching entry, but life is never easy...

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