Thanks for all your ideas on the App Which Has Not Yet Been Named. My personal favorites, in no particular order:
â?¢ OmniNCF (â??non-cat findingâ?? app), suggested by WrongSizeGlass, who went on to include the following:
â?¨Someone: â??Hey, have you heard about Omniâ??s new application that canâ??t find cats?â??â?¨Someone Else: â??Phft. Microsoftâ??s had one for years.â??
â?¢ OmniCheesecake, because as Seth pointed out, what's, like, better than cheesecake?
â?¢ Finally, Vicki's idea: OmniBaffle. That way OmniGraffle could have a friend with whom to commiserate. (“Dude, everyone calls me OmniGiraffe.” “I know, man…I know.”)
We haven't decided on a name yet â?? code or otherwise â?? but now we have a veritable plethora of concepts, both serious and, uh, otherwise (Butterstick??). Stay tuned, I hope to have a useful update on this project's progress in a few weeks.
:::
My 11-month old son has a book called Big Noisy Trucks and Diggers Demolition, which is a licensed product of, no kidding, Caterpillar Inc. (I suppose the gender-stereotypical equivalent marketed for little girls might be Fluffy Pink Ponies and Their Sparkly Anorexic Math-Hating Princess Friends.) The book details the thrilling adventures of demolition excavators and track loaders and so on, which I can tell you from first-hand experience is even more brain-numbing to read aloud than Sock Monkey Goes To Hollywood.
Anyway, while I don't guess that his Big Noisy Trucks book will prepare him for a future career in demolitions any more than his other books will help him become a Sock Monkey or a Very Hungry Caterpillar, I got to wondering about when it is that people start developing interests that stick with them throughout their lives.
Now for me, careerwise I was drawn to the fabulous art of Corporate Hyperbole at a young age because my aunt ran her own ad agency. Advertising/marketing seemed like such a glamorous, exciting world, especially after I learned that Campbell's Soup Company had very nearly accepted the joke soup name idea “Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of Meat!”. As for hobbies, I discovered BBSes when I was 12 or so on our crusty, ancient DOS machine, and finally stepped up to a PowerMac in…maybe 1997? Which I used mainly for playing Lode Runner and surfing, oh the shame, AOL.
And lo, the results of a non-techie's interest in computers and the secret desire to someday include the words “Great Balls of Meat” in a company-sponsored marketing vehicle: this very blog. (I'm totally playing the theme from Chariots of Fire right now, by the way. Duh dum duh duh DUH duhh….)
Ahem. Moving on. To my POINT, which is…what about you? When did you start becoming interested in software, in Macs? Was it when you were a kid, or older, or? Tell us your story in the comments section!
What with all the engineers off in San Francisco for WWDC.
I hope they're enjoying themselves, because back up here Terry and Jane have been making the most excellent meals and claim they will continue to do so as the week progresses.
Mmmm, chili and cornbread, french dip, I bet we get toasty cheesewiches and tomato soup PLUS breakfast for lunch sometime this week.
And we're playing Mario Kart every night just to spite Andrew.
Troy was complaining that his sync wasn't working with .Mac today, I suggested that it was a clog, as the internets is just a series of tubes, after all. Wim stepped in and recommended dietary supplements to unclog said tubes, such as fiber to the home.
Bill's correct: The proper pronunciation of ZOMG is “twenty milligrams”.
As some of you may have read, I like me some coffee.
Imagine my dismay when I saw this:
Thankfully, due to my last post on the subject, Omni user Ralph was kind enough to send us some coffee from New Orleans:
But what to make it in, if the machine is broken? Why, what's this? A small brewer!
Almost there…
Omni enjoys some freshly brewed coffee in the face of adversity!
Thanks, Ralph!
Hey, folks, just a brief note today to tell you we're looking for a Systems Guru.
(I just noticed that the description reads, in part, “You need to be comfortable supporting people who have differing levels of technical expertise”. Ha! I think they're talking about me.)
Tell all your geeky Guru-y pals, Omni's taking resumes.
Bill has now received his fifth Sega Dreamcast.
He claims that his third one (bought for parts) smells bad. The second one was pink. The pink one had some sort of mechanical error, so there's reason for number three. The smelly Dreamcast had its GD-ROM drive transplanted to the pink one (the GD-ROM did not smell bad). The fourth one was given to him by Brian, however it sits still underneath Bill's desk, unopened.
The first one (it was a limited edition Dreamcast, replete with the project manager's picture on the box and a cellphone trinket) was sold after acquiring the pink one.
His new one is also pink. He also has a large number of pink controllers and one pink keyboard (never used).
Smelly Dreamcast is currently encased in ziploc (minus GD-ROM drive).
Bill's Dreamcast wishlist:
- Broadband adapter (preferably in pink)
- Shenmue 3
Man, do I like coffee—it's total go-juice, like it's like airplane fuel for grown-ups, nothing gets me up and running like a piping hot cup o' joe, and I don't go for that whole latte/mocha/whatever-o-chino that the hoity-toity coffeeshops sell, I just like a good strong cuppa joe (preferably percolated) with maybe even a shot of espresso dropped in it, like it was some sort of coffee boilermaker, man, that would be so totally awesome that all the tea in China would have to bow down before it and energy drinks would hang their heads in shame, I don't even like to put sugar or creamer in my coffee but James showed me this trick where just a little unrefined sugar in an americano can make it taste exactly like really good drip, and that makes me wonder, how can espresso be so darn fast, even if you use a french press you have to wait for the coffee to steep but if you're using an espresso machine it's practically instant without tasting like yucky instant coffee, I gotta figure out how that all works out and then make a miniature version and patent it and I'll be super-rich, or maybe I could sell the idea or we could make some really cool app for controlling coffee makers over the internet, anyways I gotta go now, need to make another cup of coffee.
Since I just committed my last OmniDazzle fix (at least until QA tracks me down…), I thought I'd share a fun graph.
Omni has been using source control systems like CVS and Subversion since forever. A while back, we converted to Subversion and imported most of our CVS repository (none of our old consulting projects, just our apps). Here is a graph of the number of commits in our repository over the last 13 years.
Behold!
That's right: OMNI SHIRTS. Woo!
Man, the only thing that could possibly make this blog post more awesome is if I told you that a brand sparkling new Omni product is due to become available in, like, mere weeks.
Oh hey, look at that. I guess it just got EVEN MORE AWESOME IN HERE.
Hello, and thank you for visiting the Omni Blog. It's come to our attention that there is some confusion about us and our products, and we wanted to take the opportunity to provide clarification.
Item the first:
When you write us and tell us your “Omni” won't work, it makes us cry like little girls who just finished “Bridge to Terabithia” for the first time.
It is true that all of our product names do involve the word Omni. You know, it's kind of our “thing”. We also greatly enjoy InterCapping words together. It gets AnnoyingSometimes, but that's just the way WeRoll.
However, without the product name that follows the “Omni” part, for all we know, you're talking about O.M.N.I, the Opportunities for Micronutrient Interventions. And we totally can't help you with that.
Item the second:
No, we don't make that OCR scanning thing. Some of you don't believe us, and you get a little irritated, especially during Macworld when it's 4 PM on the last day of the show and you could swear we make that OCR software, but I promise: we don't.
Item the third:
We can neither confirm nor deny dressing this dog in a shirt and taking his photo. It doesn't seem like something we would do, especially during business hours.
THING THE FOURTH
It's OmniGraffle. Graffle. OmniGraffle. Not OmniGraph. Not OmniGraffi. Not OmniGraffo. And under no circumstances whatsoever is it OmniGIRAFFE.
Giraffe:
Graffle:
Yes, it's a weird name, but if you can say “Shrimp chips” three times fast, then by golly you can say “OmniGraffle”.
(Heh. Made you try. Now do “Toy boat”!)
I think that's all for now. Once again, thank you for joining us, and tune in next time when we address the burning question: What does Omni do when the network goes down? (Hint: some people write dorky blog posts!)
