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Standing on my head debugging code
This weekend I was looking at optimizing a program I'm working on and tracked down high CPU using to NSProgressIndicator which shows progress, obviously. The CPU usage has to do with animating it. After hours tracking it down, it turns out I was calling [NSUserDefaults resetStandardUserDefaults] at the beginning of my app. I have no idea what one has to do with another, but I wasn't 100% convinced of this until this morning when I reproduced the issue with a bare bones test application. I submitted a bug to Apple; this really explains some slow downs with OS X. Amazing that the pretty pulsating progress indicator can slow down a machine so much. Uggh.
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Stupid me, I upgraded the kernel
I try to tell myself, if it isn't broken, don't fix it. Unfortunately I don't always listen. Periodically I update my Linux server to get the latest updates. Unfortunately lately I've been bitten by bugs in the kernel when I upgrade. The problem arises from the fact that I'm running software RAID-1 and those that work on the kernel don't seem to use it and therefore put out updates that break using RAID. I think it is great that people spend their own time putting out updates, but it is a little frustrating to keep having the kernel break. This is the 3rd kernel update I've done that has broken. It doesn't appear that I'm the only one with this issue as evidenced by some posts I've read. I'd really like to get the security fixes in the kernel, but I need to think harder the next time a kernel comes out before updating. (Wasted 2 hours on this, good thing I had nothing else to do.)
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Where's the D drive?
I've been listening to Black by Christpher Whitcomb and as I was listening today, my ears perked up when I heard that one of the characters had an iMac. It was described as being chrome and ivory, so I was trying to figure out if it was an iMac G4 or G5. Yeah, I realize I'm a geek for even thinking about that. A little bit later, the author describes how the character put a CD into the D drive on the computer. Hmmm...I've been using Macs for 18 years and I still haven't seen a D except when using Virtual PC, but I'm sure the author wasn't talking about that.
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Free email addresses used for business
For years, I've had my own domain (next week makes 8 years), so I've always had a personalized email address. I fully understand that not everyone is as lucky as me and can't handle their own email. When I first setup the domain, only Network Solutions existed and you had to get someone to host your website and domain. Since the introduction of different registrars for domain names, domain names are not only cheaper, but in order to win your business companies provide services such as email forwarding. The company I use, GoDaddy charges less than $9 per year for a domain and includes email forwarding. What is email forwarding? Well, it allows people to send email to joe@example.com and have it goto a yahoo.com, gmail.com or whatever email address to make it look more professional. Furthermore, many of the free email providers let you set your return address to be joe@example.com instead of joe123@yahoo.com. So what am I getting at? I've dealt with lots of people that use free email addresses (I have no problem with them and even have a few of my own that I rarely use), but to me, it seems that if for $9 a year you can get an email address that doesn't look free, wouldn't you do it? Of course this is my opinion and I'm sure some people have valid reasons for using free email addresses for business.