Mick's World

Well we’re well into spring now and the weather is great. Had a bit of a fizzer of an apparent severe storm yesterday, but it hasn’t rained properly in Brisbane in over a year.

With spring comes spring cleaning, some may have noticed a while ago something on the micksworld.com page and it’s been updated again. There are going to be a few changes around here in the attempt to get this site to where I’d like it to be. I’ve already updated the design once since starting the blog in March and there have been a few minor changes since that update.

Besides working on some new stuff I’ve been getting my portfolio together and writing my resume. I’ve made many attempts in the past to write a successful resume but just didn’t have the patience. Now I’ve made myself sit down and write it out so that it’s done.

I’ve applied for a couple of jobs so far. One looked very promising, i got a call and was asked to have an interview. The job was basically exactly what i was looking for, however after a weeks wait (which seemed like a month) i was unsuccessful. Although i think that i was pretty close being on a short list of about 5 out of 30 people for interviews.

I was thinking of writing a post about my experience for that particular occasion as there were a few things i noticed a few positives and negatives during the process. I might try to put something together over the next week or so. I the mean time it’s back to looking for jobs, self employment is slow at the moment. Once my portfolio is up and running I’ll post a link so you can take a look.

To make things clear right from the start, this isn't about some dream to be a member of 9rules. As nice as that would be, it wan't in my dreams last night.

Last night i had this very strange dream. Well every night is a rather strange dream, however last nights was particularly vivid.

The setting was a beach or somewhere near water similar to that of a beach with waves. There were cliff like walls on either side of this water body, they were sandy, however it was hard packed, not loose sand.

In the water and up along the cliffs were 9rules members, i didn't recognise any as i've not seen pictures of too many of them. They were running around and playing in the water on inflatable water toys as well as jet ski's and small boats. Everyone was having fun, i guess this is what 9rules is all about. Would they really doing this kinda stuff at the beach though? I'm sure they would. This was only part of the dream though.

I can partially remember seeing Mike Rundle somewhere in amongst it all. However a part that i remember a bit better was more towards the end. I had a heap of equipment with me for some reason, laptop, batteries, etc. I think i was carting it around these hard sandy cliffs in some sort of shopping trolly. As i was decending towards the water Scrivs was also making his way down. I said g'day to him and i think we spoke about something breifly, but i can't remember what the conversation was about.

After speaking to Scrivs, the equipment i was lugging around somehow made its way out of the trolly and onto the sandy ground. I started picking up the euipment and placing it back into the shopping trolly when i woke up.

Although there seemed to be more to the dream than that, i don't know why on earth i would dream about such a thing. Very strange, wonder what it all means.

The definition of procrastination:

pro·cras·ti·nate (pr-krst-nt, pr-)

v. intr.
To put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness.

v. tr.
To postpone or delay needlessly.

Setting goals is easy. You think about what you’d like to achieve and make a plan of it. Milestones are a great way of making sure you stay on track. There really is no excuse for not setting goals.

There’s something that’s heaps easier than making a plan of what you’d like to achieve in the future. Procrastination.

You start something and then get distracted and the procrastination snowball sneaks up behind me and i feel like Indiana Jones in the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Anyway of course it is possible to talk your self out of the downward spiral, but you gotta get the motivation to do that. The best way i’ve found is to just bite the bullet and get on with it, although that’s not always that simple.

While writing this i thought that there would probably be something written about procrastination on Steve Pavlina’s blog. He’s written many great articles and it’s worth bookmarking his article feed.

There’s an article about Conscious Procrastination, which if you are a procrastinator you’ll agree with many of the points made. To help overcome procrastination there’s also an article named Overcoming Procrastination.

Well i’d better finish this post because i’m currently procrastinating. Time to get back to work.

A few months ago, upon purchasing a new PC, a bluetooth keyboard and mouse combo was part of my purchase. The one i chose was the Logitech MX 5000. I bought it because of the following features:

• Bluetooth
• Functioned as a bluetooth hub for other devices
• Having the display on the keyboard would be handy
• The mouse was rechargeable and nice shape, lots of buttons
• The keyboard is also a slim design

After using it for a while now, i’ve run into many issues regarding both the mouse and keyboard. Searching around i didn’t find many bad reviews. Well i’ve got a bad review of my own.

Recently the lot has been driving me up the wall. Here’s a list of typical things that will go wrong. The worst thing is that these issues will occur when right in the middle of coding or designing something when it’s require to be the most responsive.

1. Mouse lags and starts moving around the screen on it’s own accord
2. Keyboard disconnects
3. Keyboard won’t reconnect
4. Mouse loses all known responsiveness barely moving at all
5. Keyboard finally reconnects
6. Mouse buttons aren’t clicking on things
7. Any clicks that were made seem to all catch up at once causing havoc
8. Keyboard keys stop typing, though keyboard is connected
9. The keys catch up at once and type a mess

The thing is that these things all seem to happen together, though sometimes it will pick and choose which happen. Other things that happen are if the keyboard hasn’t been used for a few minutes it will double type the first letter. Rebooting the PC seems to be the only solution at times.

All of this is a major inconvenience when you’re in the middle of working on something. Therefore i’ve come to the conclusion that this bluetooth desktop is a load of garbage. If you’re thinking of buying one, i strongly suggest you consider something else. As soon as i’ve got enough money to purchase a new keyboard and mouse, it’ll be on the top of my priority list.

It’s built up to the stage of annoyance that i had to vent it.

Now that’s done, i can’t wait till these are released. I’ll buy one in an instant.

There have been a lot of nice days lately, it’s a very nice time of year in Brisbane at the moment. The sun is shining, the weather is sweet. Since the beautiful evening i’ve taken a few more photos and put together this panorama.