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WEEK 11 2016

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Fourteen
Years
Ago,
This
Week
2002

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Five Years Ago,
This Week,
2011

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This Week,
2012

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2013

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Years
Ago
This
Week
2014

One
Year
Ago
This
Week,
2015

Saturday 12 March 2016

Saturday - A storm blew in, so we have had wind and rain. I even lit the fire and had to bring in a few logs from the woodpile.

Doing a little cleaning and stuff.

I want to really get started on chores and computer work, but my hands are giving out, so i popped some ibuprofen and didn't do much. Bah.

Book #15 was Cursor's Fury (Codex Alera #3). Young Tavi is sent to keep tabs on a newly formed Legion, as a sub-tribune (lieutenant, I guess), but treason and enemy attack take out his superior officers and he takes over and wins (because, astonishingly enough, he's secretly royalty).

Friday 11 March 2016

Friday - Working away on things.

I am trying to get a "splash video" to work. No luck today, despite hours of work. The tutorials I am trying to use are a couple of years old - stone age stuff in development years.

I read bit on Swift. Interesting though at only 10% of the way through Neuberg's first volume on iOS 9 I haven't found anything particularly compelling.

I came up with a list of questions about the app for S, who is off vacationing somewhere...

The 2nd and 3rd books in the Codex Alera series arrived, so I went by the library and picked them up. I already had #4 and #5, but felt like reading them in order.

Book #14 was, therefore, Academ's Fury (Codex Alera #2), by Jim Butcher. Our country boy protagonist has come to the big city, and is being trained as a spy (cursor) for the Emperor...er...First Lord. It's a very Campbellian storyline, and one can generally deduce the plot twist and turns chapters ahead, but it's well done and entertaining.

Thursday 10 March 2016 Thursday - Tim had emailed with some spreadsheet questions last night, and I'd taken a quick look at it and let my brain think about it overnight. Rather than an elaborate VbScript approach I just used some "if statements" for extended but straightforward formulas. Which had an error that Tim caught and I didn't. It's odd, I know I checked it, but I was moving between Liebre and Excel so maybe it crept in there (Liebre does weird things during highlighting I've discovered, but Excel on the old laptop also has issues, so....?).

We discussed, and with the built in duplicates finder in Excel I think we have a decent protocol for finding the information he needs.

Other than that, it was 'work on the app' day. I spent waaaay too much time re-provisioning things, working through Apples maze of forms and pages. Sigh.

I did actually get some real work done, fixing the 'reward screen' that worked on one iPad but not the other. It turns out that Apple had changed how the system reports width and height for frames between ios7 and ios8 to the app, reversing them. Which, no surprise, caused issues. Which I fixed.

But its a measure of just how unprofessional their development staff is.

I also spent some time reviewing iTunes Connect and Beta Provisioning methods. Sheesh.

Wednesday 9 March 2016

Wednesday - Reinstalled system on the development MacBook. This essentially took all day.

Bizarrely, though I was attempting a 'fresh' install it did an 'upgrade'. All the stuff that I laboriously checked to be saved beforehand is still on the hard drive. I think I got burned last time this way. Next time I'm going to format and repartition the HD and that should do it. For now it's fine.

Downloads (in Gigabytes):

El Capitan: 6.6
iTunes: 4.2
Xcode: 2.0
iPhoto: 1.1

So, about 14GB of new files. And I had to download El Capitan again as the first download refused to install, claiming to be corrupted somehow.

And yet, this isn't a big deal with modern connectivity. Huh.

In the evening I checked on that property I was considering out in the west valley. And found someone has already bought it! Arrgghhh. I wanted to clear stuff with my taxes first, so it couldn't be helped I guess, though if my agent had been quicker off the mark I could have probably put down a retainer. Though probably not, I'm cheap.

Tuesday 8 March 2016

Tuesday - Relaxing a bit, doing a couple or chores around the house, a bit of computer work.

My hands are kind of trashed, swollen up, so I didn't do much. Which is boring...

I don't think I mentioned last week, but I practiced cooking with the 'prepper' small red beans. Pretty easy. Soak overnight after rinsing for dirt and rocks, then slow cook for about 8 hours, adding whatever you want. In my case hot dogs, onions, garlic salt. It came out OK, though a bit bland. A pound is plenty for two days. I put it over rice and steamed some veggies to go along with it all.

Monday 7 March 2016

Monday - I spent the morning doing more tax stuff, then headed over for my appointment after lunch. Things went OK, I'd forgotten a couple of numbers but mostly it was the same as last year, except:

I made more, and underpaid my estimates, so I owe the IRS. First time in a while that's happened!

I'm starting to think seriously about the app again. I need to back up files and install 'El Capitan' before I go any farther though.

Book #13 was Skin Game (Dresden Files #15), by Jim Butcher. This is (currently) the last book in the series. Not bad, though it doesn't advance the 'arc' much.

Sunday 6 March 2016

Sunday - Spent the day doing tax stuff, preparation for tomorrow's appointment.

The notes and spreadsheets from last year are coming in handy, so it's not the scrabble it has been in the past.

Not much else going on.

Our draftsman broke his leg last week, so I probably won't be going down to review the as-builts with him this week.

Picture of the Week

Bob, Ed, Dave at Grand Canyon hike start

Left to right: Bob, Ed, Dave, at start of Grand Canyon hike.

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