A quickie tech tip for Windows users… I have to admit, this was a new one to me and I’ve been using Windows  since 3.1. I’m kind of embarrassed by not already knowing this. 

I was recently working on a project which required me to be working on two different machines – my development machine, and the second local machine which had access to the remote server where I needed to deploy the changes. What this meant was that I would work on some code, then swivel in my chair to look at the other monitor with other keyboard/mouse, and either drag’n'drop the affected files to the remote server again or copy-then-paste the file again. 

The whole process is slightly annoying, but nothing too terrible. One of my coworkers and I were discussing a different matter the other day and I was working on this project while he and I talked. As he watched what I was doing he asked “Why don’t you just copy the file once again then just keep pasting it after you update it?” Um… because I didn’t know that would work? I suppose I should have, though. 

See, I know that when you typically move files in Windows you don’t REALLY “move” the data to a new location on the hard drive. The system merely grabs a reference to the file and then, in the case of a “move”, will merely flag where that data should now be logically accessed in your drive’s directory structure. But it doesn’t actually move the bits somewhere new. The same is true for copying from one location to another, whether the destination is on a local or remote machine over a network drive. If you “copy” the file, you will store the reference to the file’s location. If you paste, the system will at that time go get all data contained within the file and copy it to the new location. What this means is that you can keep changing the source location without having to re-copy it after every change – on each paste, Windows goes and grabs the full contents from the source before actually writing data to the new location. 

I guess you do learn something new every day.

This past week has been pretty crazy, with work running me ragged the end of last week and the holiday weekend being surprisingly busy amidst its lack of any real structure, planning, or activity. It was the perfect time for everyone in my office to get a three-day weekend though, the way the end of the summer has been going we’ve all been a little under the gun and showing the signs of stress. It felt really good to get away from the office for that extra day and just enjoy hanging out with the wife and baby. We also hit the outlets (Clinton and Westbrook both) where we made out like bandits during Labor Day sales, racking up HUGE amounts of clothes for Kayleigh’s fall/winter wardrobe on the cheap; Sunday we hit the RockCats double-header with Stephens & Tina; Monday was fairly relaxed, and I spent part of the afternoon over at Kim & Rich’s helping put up some sheet rock on the wall they’re building to make their “second bedroom” an actual second bedroom in their condo.

A recent discussion with some people online created a bit of a link exchange discussing some interesting/funny music tracks and/or videos. While Baby Got Back and My Humps get honorable mentions, I think Gin ‘n Juice by The Gourds deserves top billing personally. One of my buddies had me listen to the track only a few weeks ago when I saw him out on the disc golf course, so it was funny to see the song had a bit of a cult following online as well. Check it out embedded below.

This is a rather strange post to come back to the blog with after the past week and a half, but so be it.

When I was growing up, I liked to read. A lot. I guess having a mother as a teacher helped that particular part of my childhood, but while I liked playing soccer and otherwise being active outside, and going over my friends’ houses to play on their 8-bit NES or Sega Genesis, reading was just something I did. I actually remember, growing up, how I had a lamp that clipped onto the headboard of my bed and I would keep that thing on for hours after my designated bedtime just to read through books. Hell I was such a reading junkie that my parents, after having to come in numerous times to get me to turn the light off and go to sleep, would come in sometimes to find me hiding under the covers with a flashlight; still reading, and hoping that this method wouldn’t cast enough light under the door for them to tell I was still awake. So yes, it’s extremely safe to say I was a reading dork. I read far above my grade level, which was sometimes interesting… Roald Dahl was one of my favorites, at one point I had read every book fiction or non- that he had written: and how many 5th graders could say that? Especially given the type of content Dahl would sometimes write about. I have to say, it was a sad day in Junior High when I found out he had passed.

Another one of the authors I enjoyed growing up was Madeline L’Engle, whom I recently discovered lives in New Hartford, CT. The A Wrinkle In Time trilogy was a series that I never really “classified” into a genre when I thought about the books, even though looking back now it’s funny that even back then I was reading sci-fi/fantasy novels. Where else does, again, a 5th grader learn about tesseracts and mitochondrion? And again, how else does a 5th grader think that learning about these types of things is normal?

To my knowledge, back then, the “trilogy” consisted of three books. A Wrinkle In Time, the original book in the story; A Wind In The Door, the second book that I always considered to be the least enjoyable of the three although it had its moments; and finally A Swiftly Tilting Planet, which in some ways brought the whole story around seemingly full circle. Beyond the trilogy, there was also a book called Many Waters which revolved around the two more-often-than-not overlooked brothers in the family that the trilogy revolved around. And I thought that was it.

Enter this evening’s trip to, of all places, Wal-Mart. I was there picking up a slew of things from an extremely varied shopping list (a list that a place like W-M is perfect for) and while I’m in the back aisle I see a stand of books. On it are a new set (reprints, obviously) of books from the A Wrinkle In Time series… and what do I find but a FIFTH book in the “Quintet” as the jackets called it, called An Acceptable Time. I flip the inside cover to see the copyright date on the book, and find out it’s 1989. 1989??!? How on Earth did this escape me for almost twenty years???

Needless to say, looking at a price tag of less than $5 for the book in paperback, it found its way to the register with me. This will honestly be the first book I have read in quite some time, since about the middle of high school the volume of books that I read began dwindling until nowadays it’s pretty much nothing outside of the new Harry Potter releases. But it’ll be good. It also shows you how much of an impact L’Engle’s series had on me if, saying that, I still decide to buy one of her books when I haven’t read it before. I will try to remember and touch base about how it was when I finish it.