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Tracking down bugs
One of the hardest aspects of writing code is debugging it when it doesn't want what you expect. In one of my past jobs, I was given the task of making a server stable which meant finding a bug buried in thousands of lines of code that I really didn't understand. No one gave me a timetable on doing this, so I worked at it for over 4 months if I recall correctly. Turns out the problem was a bug in a driver that we didn't even control; I put in a workaround and moved on.
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Are expiration dates real?
Just about every consumable product we buy has an expiration date. from the obvious ones like milk, eggs, and cheese, to the less obvious, but increasingly common ones such as batteries and beer. Yesterday while I was going through my first aid kit to replenish the supplies, I found some hand warmers that expired in 2001. Could these really expire? They have some iron and some other stuff in them when exposed to air heat up to about 100 degrees Fahrenheit for about 6 hours. These weren't exposed to air and were still completely sealed. I decided to test one, opened it up and in about 20 minutes, the hand warmer was cold. So I guess the expiration date on this particular product actually meant something (maybe it would have lasted another 2 years, but I'm still a few years out).
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Yet another Sony memory format
It seems that Sony is up to their own tricks again and have come up with Memory Stick Micro, another proprietary flash storage format. There was the Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick Duo Pro, and now this. While it is great that Sony thinks that people will only products that Sony makes. This is completely ridiculous. I had thought that Sony had abandoned shoving their flash formats in our face (the Sony Reader takes other cards in addition to Memory Sticks). Personally I'm quite happy with SD cards as they're used in most of the handhelds I have, my digital camera and my desktop card reader reads them. Come on Sony!
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Reliable Internet Access
It seems that people I work with have Internet problems a whole lot more often than I. I feel quite lucky that my cable modem provider, Time Warner Cable, has been pretty rock solid for the last 6+ years that I've had them. There have been a few issues in that time, but nothing that I can really remember. I did have a problem with their DNS servers that drove me crazy, so I started running my own. I handle my own email, so I don't have to worry about that either. The "pipe" that Time Warner provides is fast and reliable. What more can I ask for in a provider?