The joys of writing code

Yesterday and today I decided to tackle an issue in some of my code that I wrote for a client. This wasn't a huge chunk of code, but how it worked bugged me and was actually going to affect my current project. This chunk of code, unfortunately was in a kernel extension (KEXT) and is extremely hard to debug. Each time I made a slight mistake, my machine would crash and I'd have to restart. After 4 or 5 times doing things, I decided to get smart and use one of my test machines. Luckily one of the machines already had Xcode on it. Crashes on this machine aren't that bad as I can work on my main machine when it is restarting and it restarts much faster as I don't have so much junk on it.

Anyway, after fighting with the code for something like 8 hours, I got it working how I wanted. Yeah! This is one aspect of development that I truly dislike; kernel extensions are hard and even if I was paid more, I wouldn't want to do them. In this particular case, the kernel extension is very minor because I convinced the client to change their firmware to make it minor. It didn't take much convincing as the more complex a kernel extension is, the more prone it is to crash (and take down the entire machine), require changes for the next OS update, and cost significantly more to write.

So while I can tackle just about any code on the Mac, will I is another question. In this case, it was worth my time to investigate this issue.

Disappointing car

Last year we bought my wife a new Honda CR-V as her Honda Accord wasn't going to cut it when our son was born. I stared driving her car a bit and really enjoyed driving it. I started looking the Acura RDX as it was a step up in terms of options from the CR-V and drooled. While I wasn't looking for a new car, I could dream. After driving my wife's car for awhile, we soon realized that it was a bit small once you pile in the baby stuff and that our next car might have to be bigger. My Toyota Highlander is a little bigger, so it will work fine when we need to pack in more stuff like Aiden's wagon.

However, I still look at new cars online and have been convinced that the Acura RDX's big brother (last year was the RDX's first model year), the MDX would be the car for me if I was in the market for a new car. Two years ago, I wrote about the ideal car. The car has all the options I want, the room I'd want, and almost meets my requirements for my ideal car. Last year's MDX model disappointed me with respect to its gas mileage, so I was hoping that the 2009 would do better. The EPA estimates for it are 15/20 with 17 combined. Ouch! The Acura web site indicates that the EPA changed the calculations in 2008 and you shouldn't compare it with older estimates. The RDX does slightly better with 17/22 and 19 combined, but those figures are just awful. Why are they so bad? My guess is that they put an engine in the vehicles is far too large for what is actually needed. Do I need a car with a turbocharger or 300 HP engine? Of course not. So when can I get the car I want with mileage ratings at least in the mid 20 MPG? It doesn't seem like it should be that hard.

Maybe next year.

Taking things for granted

I've been working from home for almost 9 years (9 years this month) and have been self-employed for more than 5.5 years. Things have been pretty good for me, and I've been reasonably happy. Recently I had the opportunity to change the status quo in terms of my work. After a lot of thinking, I realized that I have things pretty good; I control my own hours, I get to work on my own projects when I want (within reason as my own projects don't pay the bills), and to some extent I control what I work on when (prioritizing projects based on what interests me). I've taken things for granted and didn't completely know how good I've had it! Are there things I'd like to change? Of course. Working out of my house sometimes would be nice, but I can't justify the expense of an office as I wouldn't use it all the time. Would it be nice to work on one project all the time without having to do a context switch? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Sometimes I complain about my work (doesn't everyone?), but my hope is that after this week's re-evaluation, I can do a better job at doing my work and not complaining. If I get paid, is there a reason to complain? While I do take a lot of pride in my work and try to steer my clients in the right direction, the old saying "the customer is always right" might just be the ticket to my happiness!

GrandDialer is far more successful than I could have imagined

My first iPhone application, GrandDialer has been downloaded more than 9000 times! I thought that it wouldn't be that popular because people can't get GrandCentral accounts. Boy, was I wrong! The reviews are pretty good, but some people expect way more than I can do with the application. As far as I can tell, the only external interface to GrandCentral is through an HTTPS connection. GrandDialer is based on a perl script.

While I'd like it to do more, pretty much all I can do is dial the number. Things may change in the future, but GrandDialer is going to remain a one trick pony until GrandCentral opens up more interfaces (I don't plan on doing web scraping as that is very error prone and just not fun to program).

I encourage people to read the FAQ before contacting me as it answers a bulk of the questions people ask and the response time is fast!

If people like the program, please purchase something through my Amazon link.