tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9958266796005164462024-02-07T18:49:45.048+13:00Manda QoPIntermittent ramblings from a girly geekManda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.comBlogger122125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-86882210092037871232019-04-05T17:50:00.001+13:002019-04-05T18:24:29.681+13:00Meetings, meetings, and more meetings
I have an aversion to meetings. I do understand some
people like to discuss things and talk about things and that’s how they work
best, but we don’t all work well that way. What’s best for one person may be
very disruptive for another.
The situation
It's 4pm on Friday and we've come to the meeting. You explained everything perfectly in the
first five minutes but you could've just emailed Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-1817481976018176062018-12-11T11:45:00.002+13:002018-12-11T11:46:01.599+13:00Titan Throne - Strongest Lord EventHow to maximise points and get in the top 100
Strongest Lord Event is in three phases:
Building strength - most points come from building upgrades
Resource gathering - you can get high points without annoying other teams
Killing enemies - attack or defend - you get points either way
If you want to protect your resources and troops, keep your shields up at all times. City and mine shields Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-41900759907690404992015-01-19T15:17:00.000+13:002015-01-19T15:17:15.064+13:00Conference planning 101
It's been a busy 2½ years helping out first with OSDC (Open Source Developers Conference) and then immediately jumping in to helping run lca2015 (Linux Conf Australia). Looks like another may be en route as well... watch this space...
Whilst it's very rewarding helping to run a conference, there are also some traps for new players that I've learned about on the way. Luckily the first Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0Auckland, New Zealand-36.8484597 174.76333150000005-37.2549887 174.11788450000006 -36.4419307 175.40877850000004tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-69211486168836023262014-05-15T15:28:00.001+12:002014-09-12T10:55:07.556+12:00Continuous Delivery
Setting up a continuous delivery process can be quite a momentous task, especially when retrofitting to an existing product, however, I'm quite lucky with a current project in that we're at the very start of the project so there are no existing processes in place.
Once you've read this, I'd love feedback on my solution and ideas for improvements if you have any.
When I joined the project the Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-54583480078051593602014-05-01T19:36:00.000+12:002014-05-01T19:36:01.550+12:0020 Week ChallengeThe 20 week challenge started on the 28th April 2014, so hopefully it's goodbye wobbly bits.
I'm planning to blog progress on a weekly basis to make sure I stay on track with this. I will also make my exercise schedule available so that anyone who wants it can download it and join in with the madness.
My goals for this 20 week challenge period are:
Get my weight down to 70kg
Shrink my boobs (Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-71505566989484345992013-11-17T16:20:00.001+13:002013-11-17T16:20:42.034+13:00Trying New ThingsA while back I looked into getting Lasik because contact lenses were uncomfortable after a few hours due to dry eye, and glasses are just impractical when walking dogs in the rain or going to the gym. It took me ten years to pluck up the courage as I'm a bit sqeamish with eyes, but eventually off I trotted to the eye clinic with my loan offer all sorted for the fees so that I can do things Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-75056167242459484062013-11-14T10:39:00.000+13:002013-11-14T10:39:09.570+13:00Shiny Has ShippedThe new phone has shipped overnight. If the US postal service gets a shifty on, it could arrive next week and the queue of people wanting to check it out before I leave MBIE will not be disappointed. I have turned into an excited Tigger! Bounce, bounce, bounce.
Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-54248839417469262012013-11-13T14:27:00.001+13:002013-11-13T14:27:20.064+13:00New Shiny - Nexus 5 32GB in BlackI've needed a new phone for a while now. My first edition HTC Desire from a gazillion years ago is starting to get quite battered and its second battery is now starting to fail, prompting me to finally give up and buy a new phone.
The problem I have with buying a new phone is researching them; I always end up finding something amazing that isn't yet available, which means a new phone never Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-91758823224090619982012-10-26T22:43:00.000+13:002012-10-26T22:43:02.809+13:00New presentation added - CodeMania - Google Maps Quick Start GuideI've uploaded the presentation from tonight's talk at CodeMania after dark.
It was great fun showing everyone how easy it is to create your own Google map, and it was quite interesting the number of people afterwards who said they'd always thought it was something difficult to do.
Lots of people are hopefully now going away to play with customising their own Google maps Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-62736955013984242912012-10-22T20:45:00.000+13:002012-10-22T20:45:38.097+13:00CodeMania After Dark - 26 Oct 2012
26th October 2012
Codemania After Dark
Hopefully you've already got your tickets to this spiffing event that's happening on the 26th October.
Info here: http://codemania.co.nz/
I'm doing a lightning talk on creating custom Google maps - very lightning, how to create a map in 10 mins - phew... this will require some fast talking.
If you're not going to the event and you want to checkManda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-26596181616525402382012-06-07T11:53:00.000+12:002012-06-07T11:58:20.869+12:00Java Date Comparisons
I've just started to use Java, having never coded with it before, and today ran into a bit of trouble with date comparisons. The obvious option that I wanted to use had been deprecated so I needed to find an alternate.
Whilst Google and StackOverflow are normally my very best friends when it comes to this sort of issue, today they were only a little helpful, pointing me in roughly the Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-61569050503301136362012-02-26T14:47:00.001+13:002012-02-26T14:47:43.810+13:00The state of NZ internetFollowing a couple of tweets earlier today stating that our Internet in NZ is somewhat better than we folk who complain think it is, I decided to do a bit of my own research. I've found in the past that many 'facts' stated in newspapers are outrageously wrong as journalists have a tendency to misread or misrepresent data in order to create a good headline, this means I like to dig Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-27475864212454329162011-11-29T11:22:00.001+13:002011-11-29T11:22:58.958+13:00Going GoogleOkay, time to bite the bullet. I'm always going on about how great Google Apps are and promoting them to other people, but for some reason I'm not fully utilising Google to their full potential when it comes to my own business, so to see how easy it is to set up with Google Apps, I've decided to migrate my website from its current opensource FuzzyLime CMS to Google.I was planning a complete Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-3564830412857532842011-10-17T10:56:00.000+13:002011-10-17T19:06:23.501+13:00Chromebook ReviewLast week I had the opportunity to attend a Google presentation in Auckland. It was a chance to catch up on the latest news from Google Apps and to also get a first look at an actual Chromebook.
Chromebooks aren’t yet available (officially) in NZ and Ed from Google said that they’re due for release here early next year. If you can’t wait that long then Amazon are doing some good deals and youManda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-45484557793625070502011-10-14T09:37:00.003+13:002011-10-14T09:40:40.575+13:00Death of an iconOne of my all time heroes died this past week at the age of 70.  A man without whom modern coding would not exist, and yet news reports have missed this sad event.   I sent the following email to NZStuff in the hope that some coverage will belatedly occur.  The younger iOS generation should know about dmr and what he did for all of us.
---------------------
Hi,
There's been a Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-10629320469018408982011-03-29T10:34:00.000+13:002011-03-29T10:34:32.703+13:00Method FusionI'm a great fan of Agile, Six Sigma and any other tools that make development, project management and profitability easier to achieve. I also believe that you should use the tools and not allow the tools to use you. You don't have to worship at the church of Agile in order to reap benefits from its various tools, and you certainly don't have to pick one style over another, pick, choose and Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-88174788656685920312011-02-17T20:30:00.002+13:002011-02-17T20:42:43.978+13:00Toothpaste to the rescueAfter getting my new phone last year, an HTC Desire, I’d been having great fun taking loads of photos with the camera, it rocks... I haven’t used my real camera since getting the phone, but then just before Christmas disaster struck. Okay, maybe more of a minor inconvenience than a disaster, but I have a cure that others may not know about.
The basic hardware layout of phones means that Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-14956161339943736412011-01-31T12:25:00.000+13:002011-01-31T12:25:39.471+13:00Volvo YCCDid you know, that in 2005 Volvo created a car for women, that was designed by women. What I want to know is, how they managed to find a group of women even more sexist against women drivers than most men are?The car has:No bonnet or any access to the car's internal workings (women don't need to look at all that scary stuff)
An engine that automatically sends a message to the garage when it needsManda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-58981279137457329652011-01-13T19:43:00.001+13:002011-01-13T19:44:26.772+13:00It’s drastic, but I bet it would work.If you tend to only read the local news, you may have missed the news that rhino poachers in South Africa are now being shot dead This seems to be rather drastic but I bet it helps lower the poaching incidents and I think that this approach would work for recidivist drink drivers.
Here’s my plan (I’ll put it in place when I’m queen of the World):1. Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-25796491925676471972010-12-05T10:31:00.000+13:002010-12-05T10:31:03.343+13:00Thank you GoogleGoogle, you rock! The Navigation add-on on the Android is rather spiffing, especially now you've fixed it so that it works in NZ. However, there is one wee bitty problem in the function where you can speak your destination, though it is proving somewhat amusing. We've tried Kiwi, English, South African, Welsh and German accents, which all result in some interesting locations; Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-13275775234195638812010-12-05T10:23:00.000+13:002010-12-05T10:23:33.187+13:00Further adventures on the dark side - DB2DB2 is currently driving me insane.
All the normal things you can do in SQLServer seem to be missing, PIVOT for example, which in SQLServer allows you to.... wait for it.... cross tab your queries, weird that eh? Though if they'd been really creative about it then it could have caused your data to do a rendition of swan lake before settling down into a cross-tab; that I would pay to see. Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-80224991787152057822010-08-24T21:24:00.000+12:002010-08-24T21:24:35.816+12:00Adventures on the dark sideLast week I trundled along to a full day event covering various aspects of Oracle DB schemas, indexing and database optimisation.
Why did I do this? From a personal point of view I like to understand SQL from all the different viewpoints. I spent 2 years as a Sybase developer, I am currently studying for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 exams and have recently been focusing on performance tuning Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-39130596367374618042010-06-30T12:13:00.000+12:002010-06-30T12:13:48.134+12:00Cycle Powered Internet SurfingWe were having one of the usual random discussions at work today, you know the kind, conversations that start off relatively normally, degrade into utter cobblers and then go off at weird tangents and you end up discussing cycle powered internet.
Overview
In order to surf the Internet, staff members need to use the pedal attachment on their PC to generate surfing minutes.
Plus points
Less Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-51530517951246333212010-04-30T09:36:00.000+12:002010-04-30T09:36:39.312+12:00Strange goings on in SQL landWeird things with dates
I have a simple sql script that extracts raw data from a quality centre database and extracts it to an excel spreadsheet, part of this is shown below:
SELECT bg_bug_id as DefectID,
bg_detection_date as RawDetectionDate,
convert(varchar(10), bg_detection_date, 103) as FormatDetDate,
bg_closing_date as RawClosingDate,
convert(varchar(10), Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-42400806804060244242010-04-28T10:18:00.000+12:002010-04-28T10:18:14.334+12:00Logic FAIL: Monty Hall Problem – GAH!Now those of you who know me well will know that I love maths, I can spend hours and hours playing around with equations and figures and formulae, however a friend (http://rocko.co.nr/) told me at the weekend about the Monty Hall Problem and this one got me right in the logic chip. My first reaction to this was ‘that can’t be right, it doesn’t make mathematical sense’. It is a very counter Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0