Two coffee's in one day

As a Thirties something that has been working as a software developer and IT Consultant for nearly a decade I'm somewhat a freak of nature. I can't put my finger on why and in the end I even took it as a badge of difference, but I never acquired the taste for coffee or tea. Whilst unheard of in my industry it is even more astonishing given the Melbourne Cafe scene.

After a number of situations over the past month or so I've decided that while its a quirky conversation point for 15 seconds it might actually be a professional deficiency. A hot drink with a new acquaintance is the de facto professional ice breaker. A meeting over a coffee allows people to relax and get to the point of the matter rather than skirt around the issue with awkward formalities.

A project I've recently joint also has it as a staple morning tradition. In an organisation where your overall worth is in direct proportion to the strength of your personal network of colleagues its career suicide to neglect attending these informal peer bonding sessions.

It is with this in mind that at the ripe old age of 30 I'm bucking the tread of my brethren and instead of cutting back on my coffee intake I'm planning to ramp it up. I've taken the girls blouse approach with a mocha in the morning, however at a recent company social dinner I even manager a weak caffe latte at the end of the three course meal with my dessert notching my first ever dual cuppa day!

Combining my current aspirations to improve my golf game - a work in progress a blog post or two on there own - with my will to socially and professionally drink coffee, all I need to master now is public speaking and delegation and I've got management written all over my forehead ;-)

A final word or warning to the newer coffee drinkers among us, "If it's gone cold but only a mouthful remains, don't do it, it's not worth it, throw it out!"

All I need to do know is master the lingo a world in itself ...

A change in mentality

I’ve had a blogging revelation over the last few days on the back of needing to research and learn a new technology. Traditionally with this blog along with emails that I scribe I try for interesting titles or subject lines. I’ll often take an extra minute to link the subject with the body sometimes utilising a subtle undertone - for example last week I used the Swedish translation of a Willie Nelson song title -though in fairness this is as extreme as I’d go. Another perfect example of this is my review on two of the DigiDNA products in July. I titled my post “Thank-you DigiDNA” where “FileAid \ DiskAid Review” would be more appropriate.

The revelation is around relevance and keyword searches, it is about how we filter the inter web for useful information. If I’m looking to buy a new gizmo or trying to configure a specific product to collaborate with another product my search engine keywords will be very specific to that task. A Google search for “Thank-you DigiDNA” had by blog third in the results list yet on a subsequent search for “FileAid Review” I didn’t even make the first five pages. If I ever want to help a fellow web surfer with any of my brilliant life observations then I need to maximise the likeliness of my blog being offered to them as a relevant search result.

So with a little remorse though strengthened with the knowledge that it is for the greater good. I’ll be reverting to the more common practice of clear distinct post names, under the illusion that at some point in the future I’ll write something that is useful to a complete stranger ...

Today I lost my Vista-inity

As a software developer and gadget lover I typically try and keep myself electronically up to date. It is second nature to periodically check for software upgrades and driver enhancements, and with one exception I feel I do a pretty good job of being across the relevant latest and greatest.

My one exception is no more, as today I lost my Vista-inity!

I’m not sure if it was all the bad press during release, the decision to migrate to Mac OS X at home, or maybe the absence of a compelling reason to switch to Microsoft’s Vista operating system but until today I’d only really observed it from afar.

As I’ve noted before I’m new to my company and have been hired as a Software Consultant. I’m currently working on an internal engagement helping one of the larger project administration teams with some in-house systems. As the role is really only a couple of days I’ve been floating between workstations and today just happen to land on a box with Vista Professional.

I can honestly say after 8 hours experience I don’t know what all the fuss is about. Granted I didn’t have to install the software. Sure a companywide user policy might have set some of the more annoying defaults to manageable settings but all in all my productivity wasn’t affected at all.

I quite liked the Vista Score section under the equivalent to the ‘My Computer’ properties and must confess that the machine I was using wasn’t exactly a slouch scoring pretty reasonably in most categories. I did turn Windows Aero off as I didn’t see a need for the desktop to be that graphically enhanced.

Ironically after I’d finished all my customisations it looked almost like Windows XP ...