Journal comments on use.perl.org
After much time wondering why my use.perl journal no longer seems to attract comments, I finally performed a quick technical sanity check. Looks like I've been posted 'comment disabled' entries on use.perl for some time. My automatic cross-poster was feeding the wrong comment parameter to use.perl, and they were just getting turned off.

Hopefully that's now fixed, starting with this journal.

Media Apperance
An interview with me has appeared in a feature article in this week's ComputerWorld magazine (9th February, 2005). Unfortunately it's only in print, so I'm not aware of any legal copy of the article available on-line.

The feature compares different development platforms (Java, .NET, C++, and Perl), and there's no prizes for guessing which one I'm talking about. There's a reasonable amount about Perl 6 (since lots of the questions were about 'new features' and future directions), quite a bit on the flexibility of Perl, and some time spent dispelling the myth that Perl is only suitable for small projects.

There's even a mention of PerlMonks and Perl Training Australia for those looking to learn Perl.

Financal Advisor
Arranged to have a chat with a financial advisor from our bank, since we're looking at investments and are very happy to be given advice. Financial advisors usually have a 'first meeting is free' policy, and this one was no exception.

I've never seen a financial advisor before, so I brought along balance sheets and profit-and-loss statements, although these didn't really end up getting used after we finished going through verbal summaries of positions.

I didn't expect much for a free consultation, and what advice I did receive wasn't a surprise. If you're looking at investing for growth over the long term, then there are these things called shares and property that have been traditionally good investments. Property is a bit overpriced right now, and shares may or may not be. You can invest in managed funds if you want someone else to do the management for you, and gee, we've got some great managed funds here at XYZ bank. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Didn't learn anything particularly new, and I'm not sure if I should be encouraged or dissapointed by this. I think overall I was dissapointed.

Any advisor/advice will need to jump a fairly simple hurdle. I need to feel that that the advice that I gain is going to be worthwhile based upon the time and money spent. If the advice means that I'll gain an extra $500/yr from investments, but costs me $1000/yr in fees and time, then it's not very useful advice.

Recommending managed funds that invest in Australian shares and will a decent history of returns isn't what I consider valuable advice, since I can make those determinations myself.

I'll try another financial advisor or two, just to make sure they'll all saying the same thing. However I won't be holding my breath to expect any great revelations.

Windows Security Updates
Installing security updates under Windows XP is easy. One or two confirmations (or none at all, if configured to run automatically) and the updates are downloaded, verified, and installed. That's good.

Once the updates are installed, in long-standard Windows tradition you're requested to reboot your machine for changes to take effect. The user is presented with the options of 'Now' or 'Later'.

Unfortunately, choosing 'Later' causes Windows to regularly pop-up a window into the middle of the desktop which steals focus. It asks if the user is ready to reboot, again with choices of 'Now' or 'Later'. The botton marked 'Later, when I select that option manually from the menu' is conspicuously missing.

When a focus-stealing window appears without warning, it's pretty easy to find oneself rebooting by accident. That's Bad, and very annoying when one is trying to work.

There's got to be a way to turn the reboot reminders off, right? Right?

December 2004 diving Photos on-line
Some underwater photographs from our 2004 diving trip are now on-line.

I could have sworn that I edited them pretty heavily, but it seems I still ended up with 166 photographs in total.

The album software I'm using needs a few tweak. In particular the return to index links will take you back to the first page (not usually what you want), and navigation links are not appearing on the top of the index pages.

The quality of photos varies somewhat, and many of the better ones are near the end -- our photography skills got better as time went on.