Sales of floppy disks come to a screaming hault in March of next year. I haven’t had a computer with a floppy disk drive since probably March of 6 years ago. Yet, I still have a case of well-used floppies kicking around the apartment that haven’t so much as been dusted off since the days of college. Signs of the times? I’d argue those showed up around the same time as the first $20 thumb drive. The era of depressingly little memory has ended.
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Floppy disks are dead. No, really, it’s official.
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Hey look, it’s Vancouver. And on the golf course? Why, Los Angeles.
The Kings won’t be doing much else hockey related ’til next year. Vancouver took care of that on Sunday, giving me something besides Montreal to cheer for. I never thought I’d say it–thank you so very much, Vancouver. You’ve made my year.
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Windows Live Writer review: epic accessibility fail.
I like to think I’m halfway patient. Kind of. In that way that kind of makes some people consider beating me over the head for being too stubborn for my own good. Still, that having been said, Windows Live Writer just beat the royal hell out of me so far as accessibility goes. Huge.
After fighting to get it to show me the screen to write a blog entry in a manner that doesn’t do hurty things to my head, I discover it wants to create its own standards for entry formatting–including throwing HTML where it really hasn’t got any business throwing it. For right now, it’s imperfect solutions time. Which means I do the majority of my work via Semagic, now that I’ve finally gotten it to play nice with something that isn’t LJ, and what I can’t do with this will get done from the web. In the meantime, the hunt is on for a third party client that is:
- accessible
- flexible
- compatible with WordPress’s newer features
- not necessarily restricted by LiveJournal’s limitations–I’d like to be able to make full use of nested categories, etc.
I don’t particularly think I’m being entirely too demanding in this search. I also don’t think such a beast exists, or exists for free in any event. Meantime, if you’re planning to use Windows Live Writer, reconsider. It, for lack of a better word, is crap. From an accessibility perspective, Microsoft fails. Hardcore. I should probably know that already. Ah well, that’ll learn me.
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Testing out the Windows Live Writer.
I’ve been doing this long enough now that I think I’m fairly well justified in wanting to look for something that doesn’t require I pull up the website in order to write a post. Not that I don’t like the WordPress interface, but sometimes, I don’t want to wait for the site to load up when I have the option of doing this locally. So, as I’ve been known to do, I took advantage of the fact I wasn’t doing anything overly constructive right now anyway, and started playing around with Windows Live Writer. I know, it’s a Microsoft program and I’m more than a little anti-Microsoft some days. But, unfortunately–yet again–they’re so far the most promising accessibility solution out there at the moment. It does take a tiny bit of creative work with the keyboard to get things set up in such a way that I won’t have to go into the website directly and clean up after it–at least, I’d better bloody well not, which is in my book of absolute lazy a definite +5. Beyond that, and for right at this very moment, with the slightest of tweeking here and there I suspect this may or may not end up being something I can use without pulling my hair out. Now, provided this thing doesn’t do about a hundred different kinds of breaking on me, I shouldn’t in theory need to try and convince Semagic that it really really really wants to play nice with the WordPress API. I’ve noticed LiveJournal clients/services tend to virtually implode on themselves when asked to do non-LJ things. And at the moment, I don’t particularly feel like tinkering with the internals of those protocols. I’m still recovering from the last time, after all.
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Why I should never check my email. Ever.
Bad things happen when I check my email. Like, for example, the loss of an ability to breathe. I blame my relatives.
Cough Syrup……….
The pharmacist walks into the store to find a guy leaning heavily Against a wall.
He asks the blonde clerk: “What’s with that guy over there by the wall?”
The blonde clerk responds: “Well, he came in here this morning to get something for his cough. I couldn’t find the cough syrup, so I gave him an entire bottle of Laxative.”
The pharmacist yells: “You idiot! You can’t treat a cough with a laxative!”
The blonde clerk responds, “Of course you can! Look at him, he’s afraid to cough”.
Clearly, family members of mine have way, way too much time on their hands. And now I hurt. Thanks, guys. For serious.
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The next best thing to a Canadians defeat? A Senators defeat.
I don’t get to stand in front of my TV screaming in victory yet–Montreal’s still in the playoffs. But, thank bloody God, Ottawa’s done. Their quest to choke in the Stanley cup finals died on Saturday. Yes, and I’m just now getting around to posting about it–I’ve been busy, okay?
In 2007, Ottawa sat tied at 3 games with the team formerly known as the Mighty Ducks in the Stanley cup finals. The city was freaking insane, to put it nicely–Ottawa in the finals just doesn’t happen. I called in sick to work that night just so I could watch the seventh and final game, but not for the same reason nearly everyone else who could have gotten out of work did. While they were seated in front of their TV’s screaming for a Sens victory, for the first time in my life, I cheered for the Ducks. And, in the dying minutes of overtime, I wasn’t disappointed. It’s sad, but true. Like the song says, the Stanley cup will never go to Ottawa. But, think positive, boys. The Leafs have your usual course reserved already.
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Employment resource centers plus small town living equals not much help.
So, as I hinted at in my last post, I dropped by an employment resource center today. Mostly out of general curiosity–they couldn’t do much worse for me than I have so far, but also because, well, I could. Turns out I might have been smart to keep looking outside of Pembroke–there really, as the guy who worked with me rather bluntly agreed, isn’t much here beyond fast food and/or retail which, while they may be make-work jobs for folks who like that kinda thing, isn’t my idea of a career choice. He did suggest I try yet again to apply to work at Online Support, a local call center in the west end of Pembroke, but seeing as my previous two attempts to get hired there ended up a rather impressive-sounding flop, I told him I wasn’t going to hold my breath on this one. Fortunately, he’s not the type that requires I constantly have my foot in his ass for results–at least, he doesn’t immediately appear to be. So, failing that, he said he’d try and get me into Ontario’s second career program–escentially, a government-sponsored program to fund going back to school to either gain more skills or enhance existing ones in order to make me a little more hireable. Or, in my case, in order to put the extent of my geekyness on paper. I’ll know how that goes within a few days, most likely. Beyond that, I only gained these from my experience this afternoon.
- My skills, were I not living in a technically dead place like Pembroke/Petawawa, or were Ottawa’s tech sector not currently on life support, would land me just about any kind of entry or second-level position–if they were on paper. Hence, trying to get into second career training.
- I got a free thumb drive out of the deal. I already had one, but hey, I’ll take a second. It’s got the logo of the Canadian armed forces on it, and it was free, so how could I say no? I have no idea on capacity, but again, it was free.
Further proof that I rock at resume-building–it’s not going to involve a major rewrite of the thing, thank god. I’ve already done that dance too often. So, we’ll roll the dice and see what the hell happens. Worst case, I keep applying for jobs outside Pembroke. Which I’ll probably keep doing anyway. Best case? It’s back to school for the geek in training. And if someone else is paying for it, there’s an increasing likelyhood of me actually focusing more on the learning and less on how I’m going to pay for next semester. Works out to win win for me. In the meantime, anyone have an opening for a techy? Let me know.
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Figures. I step away from the hockey world for a week, and miss an upset. Devils are gone.
I’ve been concentrating on other things besides hockey for the last several days, a trend that I think is gonna continue today–I have some employment resource thing to get to in a couple minutes. So it figures I miss seeing the Devils get their season handed to them along with their ass. I was kind of hoping Montreal would be the first on the golf course–my poor Leafs could use some lessons there. Ah well. At least I can take some comfort in the fact Ottawa’s gone. But, that gets its own post when I come back–if I don’t forget. I’m horrible for that these days.
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The Ontario government has just ruined grade 3.
How old were you when you first got the talk, from either parents or teachers, about the tiny little details of the typical sex act? Bet you anything you weren’t this old.
Sex education belongs in the province’s schools despite criticism from some people who oppose exposing students as early as Grade 3 to sexual content in the classroom, Premier Dalton McGuinty says.
“And I speak not just in my capacity as a premier but as a father,” McGuinty said Tuesday. “(Children) are going to get this information. Either we can provide it in a format and in a venue over which we have some control or they can just get it entirely on their own.”
And of course, in typical “this is what we’re doing and you can suck it up” fashion, his choices are simple.
Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky said parents who object to the topics taught in health can take their child out of class.
Consider it done. If and when I end up with kids, I’ll be looking for places to get them a proper grade 3 education. Probably out of Ontario, if this actually ends up happening. Let’s leave the sex education to the sexually active, shall we? Nah, I didn’t think so.
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Latest knock against my employment attempt: must have prior $company experience.
So. I mentioned before I very rarely lately find jobs worthy enough to apply for. And even more rarely do I find jobs that don’t throw a bilingualism requirement into the mix. Which means if I’m lucky, I fill out maybe two applications a month–hello, Ottawa’s much too overused bilingualism rules. How’s it going? I was working at one such application this morning, when I ran into a whole new reason to curse the existence of a potential employer. Upon clicking submit, I get a very polite message informing me that prior experience with that company is required. Say, um, what?
For the record, and the curious, the guilty party this time is Primus Canada. Their job description, what you might be able to call a job description, goes into great detail about exactly what the company expects to get out of a potential employee. Qualifications I easily meet. But, there’s nothing on their site stating that position–or any other, for that matter–requires prior experience with that company or group of companies. You don’t find that out until you hit the submit button on their application. And then you get the afore mentioned very politely worded dialogue box.
A gentle note to Primus. I have what you’re looking for. I worked for a company who could probably knock you around if the two of you competed in the industry. I know a thing or three about unbreaking internet connections the average user screws up beyond all recognition. And I also know a thing or three about things a company like yours doesn’t ordinarily support–including half your own hardware. You want me. So let me apply, dammit.
Also: those questions re: have you ever worked/interviewed with us before? Yeah, even from a company with apparently looser hiring standards they suck. Reconsider. Thank you.
recent Posts
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- I would absolutely love a self-driving car. It won’t happen in my lifetime.
- Ontario votes Not The Liberals, again.
- Ontario doesn’t do accessibility. Also water is wet.