I am a geek. I know this. I'm at peace with it. I bought a book to read in the car on the way to PA - Coldfusion 8 Advanced Applications. Nothing says geek like that when it comes to a nice vacation read, not even Gone with the Wind, which, yes, I've been informed, has been made into a movie.
I've been building web applications for years now, and along with new development, much of my job is supporting and enhancing the systems I've already built. Some of them are quite large. I get calls and emails all the time about problems with the system. At least half the time, it's not even a problem it's user error. I spent an hour the other day tracking a problem of data that was supposedly not getting imported into a system, only to come to the conclusion that someone on the other end was deleting it after it imported. Now, that's frustrating, and things like that happen all the time. Problem is, I don't know if it's a real issue or not until I spend an hour or so tracking and investigating it. Like the print problem we're having in one application, where sometimes the font shrinks down so small you can't read it. I haven't tracked it down to a particular browser, page size, or any consistency. I'm baffled. It may just be a bug. Not my bug, the language's bug. I'm not sure there's a damn thing I can do about it. We're planning on upgrading them to a new server, with the latest software, etc. That might do it.
Today, I fixed an issue with an automated email application, resolved a perplexing data type mis-match error when comparing two strings (completely useless and incorrect error message), and still haven't rectified the bizarre jrun 500 error in a data export. The export's been running almost a year. I'm assuming it has to be a server issue. Some space or permissions problem. But as Scarlet would say, "I can't possibly think about that now. I'll go crazy if I do. I'll think about it tomorrow."
And while I was working on all this craziness today, Outlook decided to flip the hell out on my brand-spanking-new computer. I'm trying to watch the data export in Firefox and Outlook keeps popping up. I keep minimizing it. It keeps popping up again. I close it. It opens back up again. I go to the task manager and shut Outlook down. It opens back up again. WTF, Microsoft. Seriously, W - T - F. I could use IE without getting interrupted, but not FF. Someone at Microsoft is pointing and lauging. I can hear you! You suck! I'll use FF if I damn well please. You will not be the boss of me. Rebooting corrected this, but that should NOT have been necessary.
Sometimes in complex applications and shopping carts, data gets lost. We're pretty good at tracking this. I have websites set to email me when users generate errors. There are error logs we can check if someone has experienced problems. Usually, there's a trail if you look hard enough for it. But the internet can be a crazy and mysterious place. Sometimes I feel like it's half voodoo. I have had people ask me, when I've tried to explain possible causes for their problems, if I was on drugs. No people. I'm not on drugs, and I'm not putting you on. Web browsers are not the web developers friend. Strange and unforeseeable shit can happen out there. And seeing that there's always new upgrades, new versions, new patches, new standards - you can never know it all. It's not just me. Dell lost my order for my brand-spanking-new computer. I printed the confirmation/specs. They had notta. I tried to renew my car registration online with the DMV. Entered in all my info, car insurance info, only to receive an error message - twice. I used snail mail to renew it.
One of the problems I've been having is with a browser coming through listed as Mozilla 8.0. Mozilla was originally Netscape and is now Firefox. Netscape is basically obsolete. FF is at version 4.0. WTF is Mozilla 8.0?
Anyway, you can tell work has gotten to me today. See, and you thought I didn't work at all, you silly gooses. No, I blog so as not to lose my mind while I'm dealing with all these crazy problems and geeky stuff.
And soon I get to go to the movies with the girls. Maybe even drinks after the movies! Yeah, a wild night for me! Holy hell internet, sienora baby. I've had my fill of you today. Go annoy someone else.
Am I crazy or isn't FF only on 3.0.1? ;)
Posted by: j | July 28, 2008 at 03:45 PM
FF 4 is out pre-alpha, whatever that means. I'm sure Diosa can explain it, but I am not the right geek for that job.
Posted by: Polly | July 28, 2008 at 06:37 PM
Yes, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. FF is at version 3, which is Mozilla 5.0. Sometimes I get lost between the browser version and the Mozilla version. I've been looking at a lot of Mozilla 4.0, hence the slip. But I wouldn't be surprised to see instances of it, because as Polly noted, it's available in beta version. None of this answers my question of what Mozila 8.0 is. Some guesses out there are that it's someone's bad attempt at spoofing a browser in a bot. Or it might possibly be another browser using Mozilla, Eudora. Whatever it is, I don't care to spend much more time on it. It's just one of the minor annoyances I've been dealing with.
Posted by: Diosa | July 29, 2008 at 09:48 AM