Note to square dance callers (and others traveling on business)

If you're crossing a US border, have a friend inside who has a laptop you can use. There's no telling when you'll get yours back, nor your USB key, iPod, or camera either, if they decide they just don't particularly like the look of you.

I don't know how often it's happening, but it's sobering to know that it could.

Hat tip to dduane for the link.

Workplace chuckle

Here's an e-mail exchange that made me chuckle this morning.

M 10:39am: Please send a status update, particularly for Project1.
me 10:48am: Status bla bla bla Project1 detail bla.
M 10:49am: Out of Office AutoReply: I am out of the office until Wednesday August 6. I will not be reading email.

It's true, too; he's gone.

M is the kind of guy who'd take it well if I showed him these and then handed him a Pointy-Haired Boss hat.

It's almost Dilbert-worthy

Our new virus-blocker software has now deleted my Symbian development tools three or four times. If it's running when I start the IDE, the system freezes for about a minute and then the virus-blocker proudly tells me it has completed a rollback to remove a terrible threat. Sure enough, every time it does this, the IDE executable is gone. In order to get any work done, I have to disable the virus-blocker and reinstall.

I must admit I can't strongly disagree. Symbian development IS a threat... to the coder's sanity, at least. :-)

For some reason the same virus blocker doesn't do this to my coworker. I made a copy of her executable, and now I can just keep restoring from that. It's quicker.

I'm almost disappointed that the virus blocker isn't smart enough to delete the license. The license is node-locked and costs several hundred euros. (That, at least, is backed up on a separate machine.)

It's impressive in its way, y'know?