06-II-2006.
Overyester we went to Richmond to see Go. She's just sittng this semester out, she graduated already, waits for her paperwork, waits for Ricardo to graduate, waits and has fun, experiments. She took us to some students' exhibition, a corner or two away down the same street, which we call Konjska (equestrian, aka horse). Guess it's called Monument st but most of those monuments are to various generals from the civil war, and they're mounted.
The exhibition was quite interesting, because at VCU's arts they don't culivate the classical painting that much, but rather go for interaction with more contemporary methods. If there weren't too many video or electronic installations, there were interesting works in techniques akin to comic strip drawing, or those fancy sandals of bent paper, not origami (or origano) but in nice arches.
At least I made a bunch of shots, and the end does look a bit ancient. Nothing there is older than 150 years, Richmond had burned to the ground and then went with the wind and they built a new [one], even older. The drizzle was on all the time, even better for photoing. Then we went to Ukrops, who's the new tenant of the local supermarket, the cooperative there worked while it did. It looks pretty much the same, except they feel the need to employ small tricks to increase. If not throughput, then profit.
And made more shots in the supermarket, which now look really weird, though it looks not grayish as the regular shops, this is more all krmkasto (v. house dictionary). And no matter how this Conica/Minolta is prone to make blues shiny bright, this time it did that with the red tones. At least the labels on jars and bottles look garish.
Yesterday Joe put something on UA, guess he joined it for the occasion, so I sent him a message. Not knowing how often may he check for messages, nor whether he'll notice a private one from me, I emailed it too, just in case.
We never really communicated directly, but you know me - I worked for Berix in 2002 and I've done the SpeedCanvass. And the Codemine guy is around here somewhere, but he seems to have moved to other projects. If I remember correctly, that'd be Roger Bolinger.
Anyway, since I know some of the playing field etc - I can do a setup, but I'm not really using InstallShield anymore; I'm doing Inno setup, which is far easier to control, much more scriptable etc etc. I've already had one little app published with the setup created by Inno, and haven't heard any complaints yet after two years.
So, if you're willing, so am I.
I nailed it - he does remember me, yes it was Roger, and he couldn't wait to get rid of InstallShield, which turned utterly bullshit since m$ bought it. So, he'll need two apps to be put together, so some rework is due, mmm... Back then Berix and I looked into this, and if Roger didn't drastically change his style, I'll just need to write some wrapper for his forms to turn this into a usable whole. If he needs any graphics, our older daughter graduated „communication arts“, and if it's Java, middle one also just graduated... runs in the family.
He did find a foxer to take over the SpeedCanvass, it's at version 2.5 presently, but the guy didn't want to touch the installer. It didn't perform as well on the market as he hoped, but he's committed to it, and even began some work with dot nyet... Ouch, good luck with that.
For the installer, I downloaded his .ism files (the InstallShit's), which are, of course, in some binary format. The fucken m$ never had any love for plain text files, because then anyone would be able to edit them without buying any tools, they just love to sell ink which works only in their pens. Or could it be they're scared of the possibility that anyone would see what ridiculous stuff they keep in there... Luckily, I still had ISh somoewhere, so I managed to read these files and export the filename list. So much for today, combing them is next.
On eighth I already had a version of setup which worked... Now whether it did everything that it should, on zmajček and Nina's machine id did. A bunch of issues left to try, solve, check - whether an update will find the previous installation, whether it will overwrite the data directory, will it neatly agree not to go to the default directory, will the updates find this nonstandard directory or will they try with default first... Hundred needles and pins, work ahead.
I've run it a few times with the old version, then updated, rebuilt with the new one, tried again.
And, BTW, there's no trace of any version information inside the executable (while fox is capable of that - actually I'd be in a lot of a mess if I didn't turn the auto-incrementing version number on, so each build has its own number), so I can guess only by the date of the file. For a while I really didn't know which version am I running - there's nothing in the About screen either.
By afternoon he already tested the first version of the installer, and said there's not much left to do, just adjust the displayed text in a couple of places. It's more about the bunch of files which ISh inserted and which are totally unneeded. Yup, I already kicked out a bunch of backup files, which fuck are they in there at all.
David is on vacation from 3rd to 16th, so I'm doing no rush work, just staying dežurni if they call from UniJewel, which happens maybe once a week. Of course, I have this production tracking, but he drew it all and I'm just slowly working on it, form after form, all done exceptt maybe two-three regular[ one]s and a few previews, which are always simpler. I sent him a composite document on work-in-progress, to spoil his vacation for him a little.
Also, Gary chimed in, something urgent. He got a warning to remove some photos to avoid lawsuit, copyright issue bla bla, so to replace them with the picture which says we have no picture. For which we already have a mechanism, he only needs to mark the photos to which need to apply it. It didn't work, because his email filter refused to accept a .bat file. He's got a new guy who'll do Java stuff for him (I stay the database guy), and I see by his name and surname that he's a yugo, probably a Hercoš or Montenigga.
Writing to my [folks]. A few messages fucked in the recent days, so we're relaying them through Go. Which is weird, she's using that Gugao's email, how is that passing and my regular not. She's got an invite [nee invitation] for me if I want (which I already had, because I needed a waste adress for various shit).
The power bill just arrived, to some 130 kilowatt[hour]s less than the same month last year. The consumption is not as much smaller as we expected, but then there are mitigating circumstances. For one, it's warm everywhere, we're sitting in tee shirts and mostly without socks (holding at 21 degrees), and at times we warm up a bit with that wee area heater under the kitchen tabe, specially in the mornings while we wait for it to push up from 19 (as we set it for nights) to 21. Last winter we sat in sweaers, and most of the house was cold. Second, last winter we didn't have a bathroom, so we bathed in that packaging box and no frequentlier than once a week. Now we shower whenever we feel like [it], and there's four of us (not counting the piglets, they consume no power).
Besides, when I compare this power bill with what we paid as tenants, that was more for smaller space. The last apartment was actually smaller, about 100 square[ meter]s versus 140 here, though I think those 100 included the porch. We paid about 130$ in winter, 110$ now. Some 35$ of that being actually the fixed cost, the real decrease is significant. This is where the new doors, which are finally airtight, mean a lot - the old [ones] were quite drafty.
Last week a girl came by, a representative of a few majstors doing house fixing - one does doors and windows, another roofs and walls, and maybe there's another one who'd pay her to get a customer. These first two are, as it seems, some cousins. She polled us on what would be interesting to fix in the house, and told her to see with the roof guy. And he came and said he'd have to check the roof itself, because if there's two layers of shingles, he'd have to take both down, because per city code there can't be more than two, because of hurricanes. The third one doesn't get nailed well enough. Now, out of season, it would cost about 2500$, in full season 3600$ to replace the shingles, put the leaf grid on the gutter, and to fix the gutter itself.
Then we checked the attic and saw that two kinds of nails jut out through the plywood - so, the roof was already reshingled, so no need to touch it. This would make purchasing a long ladder worthwhile, to fix that hole on our own. Luckily, the hole is in the overhang, so whatever leaks through it stays outside. And the squirrels get in :).
And we finished the lower bathroom. On sunday I took my time mounting the lavabo*, and to connect the faucet we bought stronger tubes, knit around with staineless steel, to look nice and last long. I finally had the chance to shave with a mirror in front of me - previously I had to maneuver a lot, because the mirror was to the left of lavabo.
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* if „placebo“ means „I will please“, „gazebo“ - „I will gaze“ (that's worse than pig latin), lavabo means „I will wash“, and is actually a regular official word in several european countries. It's the bathroom sink.
Mentions: Cecilia Roxbury (Berix), David Krakovski, dežurni, fox, Gary Brandywine, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Gugao, house dictionary, Joe Dioballato, Majkrosoft (m$), majstor, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), Ricardo Manuel Bariero (Ricardo), SpeedCanvass, UbiquAgora (UA), UniJewel, yugo, zmajček, in serbian
31-VII-2025 - 14-V-2026