Hung Truong: The Blog!

Who Died In A Blogging Accident?

2 people apparently. But now there’s a lot more posts for the phrase “died in a blogging accident” because XKCD did a funny comic.

The world may never know who died in a blogging accident. And yes, I’m repeating the phrase “died in a blogging accident” for maximum SEO goodness. Died in a blogging accident.

Internship Searching Season 2008

So January (and in some ways, December) is the time to start looking for internships. I’ve already done quite a bit of looking along with sprucing up my portfolio site (the projects section has accordion effects now!) and updating my resume.

I think part of the reason it’s difficult to search for internships is because I’d like to define the internship rather than the employer defining it for me. I understand the need to succinctly say, here’s what the internship position is, but too often I end up seeing generic “software engineering” of which I have no idea what they entail.

Out With Vista (New and Busted), In With XP (Old Hotness)

That’s right! After having been screwed by Vista for the last time (incompatibility with Nero 5 OEM, which would require an unnecessary “upgrade” to Nero 8, and the inability for Vista to share its printer with other XP computers), I’m switching back to XP. And by that, I mean I’m switching my mom back to XP.

So long, Vista! I hope you die in a fire!

Google “Friends” = Worst Idea Ever

Maybe I’m just in a bad mood this week. Or maybe software is just getting ridiculously stupid.

I use Google Reader as an RSS Feed reader. They recently introduced a “feature” where you can see stuff from your “friend’s” RSS subscriptions. Google has the idiotic idea that anyone you chat with on Gtalk or email is a friend.

Google doesn’t ask you who you friends are, they just have some algorithm to determine it. An algorithm. To determine who your friends are.

While I am very confident in certain algorithms (like say, Dijkstra’s Shortest Path Algorithm), I believe it’s quite easy to figure out who one’s friends are by FUCKING ASKING THE PERSON!

The worst part is, in order to remove these stupid stories, you must delete these people from your contacts list. So really, there’s an extreme binary relationship: either you are someone’s friend and you email them, or you are not their friend and you will never email them, ever.

Google will not be able to beat Facebook at social software if they can’t figure out how to ask someone who their friends are. This move shows an utter lack of understanding of human nature. Google thinks they can solve things mathematically when asking a user will completely suffice. The algorithm-worship there has seriously got to stop.

A Tirade Against Vista, Norton, Logitech, Et Alia

I got my mom a new Inspiron 531S from Dell, and I’m setting it up right now. Okay, actually, I just sorta got the computer when I bought my 24-inch monitor, and my mom needed a computer, so I brought it over.

It has Windows Vista installed. I haven’t really ever used Vista, but I’ve been bombarded with frustration since roughtly 8:30am, so enjoy my stream of consciousness tirade while I get my mom’s computer working the way it should!

Vista: Get your act together, man! You know the first thing that happened after my mom created her admin account? “Windows Explorer is not responding, do you want to [end process] [wait] [uninstall Vista].” I would’ve chosen the tertiary, if it had existed.

Dell: What’s up with all this crap pre-installed on my system? I don’t want Google Toolbar or Google Desktop! I don’t want random Dell crap using my resources, I don’t want…

Norton Internet Security: WTF!? You’ll protect my mom’s computer for 30 days? And then stop protecting it? This seriously amounts to some kind of extortion. And why does it take 10 years to finally uninstall all of you!? And…

Vista: Why do you need my permission to do anything and everything!? Would you like my permission to change contexts? Load up the kernel? Reference and dereference memory? Because I could hit “okay” all day if you wanted me to. Okay, I’ve disabled this in the control panel. Yet I needed to restart to get it to work. Though when I restarted, Vista decided to install a bunch of security updates without asking me first. Hey, Vista, don’t assume I have all day to wait for you to install these security holes that you shouldn’t have shipped with in the first place! Oh man, I’m getting angry… At least it didn’t just restart randomly, like my own desktop has been doing lately (I disabled that, too).

Okay, so now stuff is sort of working properly. Except that Vista is actually slower than XP was before. Or maybe it’s this AMD chip that’s somehow found its way into my mom’s computer. (Full disclosure, my mom works at Intel).

Well, now to install some drivers, like the…

LOGITECH KEYBOARD AND MOUSE DRIVERS: WHY THE FUCK DO YOU TAKE UP 53.1MB!? SERIOUSLY, ARE YOU A MULTIMEDIA EXTRAVAGANZA!? AND NO, I DON’T WANT TO INSTALL YAHOO TOOLBAR!!!

To be continued…