So...

[ElPietro]

...how is everyone doing?

Been rather busy as of late, thought I'd drop in and say what's up.

[ewallace]

Good. How about yourself?

[ElPietro]

Work is keeping me busy, along with doing a ton of training, so barely have any time left in the week. Saturdays I'm taking a woodworking class, to help me become a bit handier, since I bought a house last october, which should finish being built in september this year. So of course, most of my time is consumed by either training, this class, or planning stuff for the house. Moving from a 1000 sq/ft condo to a 2200 sq/ft house, so I need more stuff.

Lately been researching home theater stuff as well.

Not sure if Ford is still around here much, but if you are, I think I saw you post on another board on home theater. Think you are located in the same area dude. Lemme know.

I guess since I am forced to go to the gym on my lunch breaks at work now is a good indication how little free time I've had lately.

[ewallace]

I know how you feel. We just bought our first house 2 months ago. I have next to zero free time. I've been considering taking the same class. Not sure if you have a home depot or a lowe's up there but they have free DIY classes every weekend.

Congrats on the house.

[Ford Prefect]

Congrats on the houses, guys. EP, I don't think I posted on any home theater board, but I know a bit about electronics and that stuff. I work in IT, so I like to keep up to date with all the latest technology. Looking for a new job now though. Work just laid off 33%! I'm not sure if I should be happy I still have a job or not because I would have almost the rest of the year off with the packages they were handing out.

[Guile]

Originally posted by Ford Prefect
Congrats on the houses, guys. EP, I don't think I posted on any home theater board, but I know a bit about electronics and that stuff. I work in IT, so I like to keep up to date with all the latest technology. Looking for a new job now though. Work just laid off 33%! I'm not sure if I should be happy I still have a job or not because I would have almost the rest of the year off with the packages they were handing out.

Hey what kind of work you do?
Networking, programming? etc

[Ford Prefect]

I do networking. We have a wide range of platforms but are based on Windows NT and 2000 domains. We also have Sun/Solaris boxes, HP-UX, AIX, TRU64, Linux Redhat, etc. I'm responsible for maintanace, administration, service configuration and rollouts. Luckily I don't have to do much programming beyond writing scripts to make my life easier. I hate programming.

[Guile]

Nice,
Shell scripts are a lot easier. F*%$ gcc.

[Ford Prefect]

Don't do much scripting on the Unix side besides a few real basic rdist type stuff. I do a lot on the windows side. One app we have here needs to have IIS 4.0/5.0 (depending which OS), SQL desktop engine, XML Parser, Time Syncing, IIS lockdowns, Service Packs (dependent on OS) isntalled as well, so I just script it all. Even scripted, it takes 45-60 minutes for all the components to get installed.

[ElPietro]

Ah ok, just another user with the same "nickname" as you then. Said he lived in toronto so I thought it might be you since I "think" you live in canada. I guess sometimes 2 + 2 != 4 eh?

Ewallace, yeah there is Home Depot up here. If I can find some time I'd think about trying some of their afternoon DIY demos. The course I'm taking is at a college and is a full cabinet making course. I'm taking since they have a great shop, show you how to use all the tools, and to grade wood, and joinery etc. ANd basically once you've been tested on the tools, you can either go with the class modules, or do whatever you want. So it's basically just access to a great shop. Lotta contractors sign up just to use their equipment.

[ElPietro]

And since the subject has changed, I use SQL and can do some stuff with VB for excel macros.

[Ford Prefect]

EP,

I'm a full-blooded American from Boston. I'm happy to say a recent study said that we are the 3rd rudest drivers in the US and the 2nd most dangerous. I love driving in the city.

Ford Prefect is a character from a book.

[ewallace]

SQL has made the last couple weeks a real pain for me.

Just FYI, I stumbled upon a great T-SQL book called The Guru's Guide To Transact SQL. I highly recommend it. It picks up where BOL leaves off.

[FatherDog]

Originally posted by Guile
Nice,
Shell scripts are a lot easier. F*%$ gcc.

GCC isn't so bad for actual program compilation, although 3.0 seems to insist on linking everything to libgcc.so, whether it needs it or not.

GNU ld is broke, broke, broke. Sigh.

I'm lazy, so I use perl for most things anyway

[Robinf]

Hey Ford,

When you drive through Boston, look for me waiting for the T. And don't forget to bring a towel (in reference to your character name).