…but still want to do something neat like update your exchange calendar?  well, i’ve figured out how, using the all powerfull GOOGLE and my POS lg rumor.  don’t take this as a recommendation for the rumor… b/c this phone fucking sucks and i want something else badly.

first off, some caveats about this whole thing.  for one, you have to keep the google calendar sync application running with outlook open on a pc somewhere.  if you work in any kind of enterprise/corporate environment, you most likely already leave your pc on, logged in (and hopefully LOCKED) at all times.  if you do, this will work great.  if not, you won’t get the full advantage of this little system, but it could still be useful for updating your work calendar on weekends, as it would sync anything new when you started up your pc the next time.  secondly, the google sms features of the calendar are only available to US customers (sorry canada! :P)

so with that said, here’s what you need to do.  first, sign up for a google calendar account at http://calendar.google.com (of course your gmail account will work!)  once you have that, download the google calendar sync app (double check that you have a version of outlook and windows that is supported) and install it.  make sure you set it up for two way updates (so anything you add in either google calendar or outlook will show up in each).

now open up your google calendar account and click the settings link in the upper right corner.  go to the mobile setup tab and enter your phone number and mobile provider.  be aware that by doing this you are going to use text messages, so if you don’t have unlimited texting this could end up costing you A LOT!  once you do that google will send you a special code to put into the verification box.

so now you have your google calendar ready to receive new events via text and it should be syncing to your pc and outlook.

now for the really cool part (IMO)!  you can now text your calendar by sending a message to 48368 (GVENT) and have it either reply to you with your current days events (text message of “day”) or the next days events (”nday”) OR, and this is the best, you can have it add a new event to your calendar by texting it in plain english!  what does that mean exactly?  say, for example, you want to add a new appointment for next tuesday at 3pm with someone.  all you have to do is text GVENT and in the message say “meeting with my mom at 3pm tuesday.”  the system will figure out what you mean and add the event (by default for one hour, but you can go ahead and tell it “meeting with my mom at 3pm tuesday for 2 hours” and it’ll make a 2 hour appointment instead).

i’ve played with this system and it is pretty smart, you can give it dates and times basically any way you want and it will figure it out.  i even had it set a full day appointment by telling it “all day.”  one thing that did not work however was giving it a fraction for the time, so saying “2.5 hours” will really have it make a 5 hour appointment with “2.” as part of the subject.

so there you go, no need to get a fancy windows mobile phone to view/update your exchange calendar! (i’ll still be getting rid of this goddamn piece of crap rumor ASAP tho)

ah, the end of summer. working where i do, it’s always an interesting time. more people come. the renewal of fall begins. it’s a strange difference given the fact that fall is when nature starts to die for the winter, but yet this place starts to grow.

so this is my umpteenth attempt at a blog, but whatever. i’ll try it again and see if it doesn’t get any more enjoyable. maybe because this one is on my own site i’ll feel more inclined to write about whatever. (i’ve imported all my old blog posts from livejournal below, btw)

there’s a big weekend ahead for me. saturday has the first buckeye game of the season, which due to circumstances out of my control *COUGH*GODDAMN BIG TEN ASSRAPE NETWORK*COUGH* i’ll have to travel to a friends house to watch the game. then i have a birthday party for my 7 year old cousin, and finally there’s a good show at ruby tuesday on campus saturday night.

speaking of which, you should go!

then of course, there’s sunday. i believe a party is in the works at dr. jones house. and monday is a holiday. i have to pick up K at the airport at some point. the world traveler returns!

so yeah, the world comes and the world goes and norb lives on.

ok, so in a post a few days ago i let everyone know that i work in IT. so, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to the meat of this; WORK.

i hate work. i don’t think i’m alone in this feeling. i would hazard a guess that about 98% of all people do not like their jobs. so, when you find yourself in a situation where your job really bothers you, what do you do? that’s the question i’ve been asking myself for awhile now.

for some insight into me, i like to feel safe in general. i like to have a job so that i can have money. i like the field i’m in, just not too happy about the actual place i work. basically my workplace is a complete and utter clusterfuck. the management is shitty (what management isn’t?), the ordering process is messed up and slow (which, in my profession, you always need stuff right now and if the ordering dept takes too long, it’s my ass that gets chewed out), the hiring process is a joke (we’ve been trying to hire another person for our department for about 4 months now… the job posting is actually going up this week so they say, although i’ve heard that every week for the past 4 or 5 weeks now, so i’ll believe it when i see it), and the actual infrastructure (left to me by my previous boss) is a mess.

anyway, as i was saying, i like to feel safe; meaning i can’t (or won’t) leave one job until i have something else lined up. this causes some problems for me though…

1. i have to hide any kind of job searching from my current employer
2. i have to find a job that is similar to my current one, and my current salary (shouldn’t be too hard) before i can really take it seriously
3. i have an affinity for some of the people here, and i’d rather not leave them in a lurch. which leads to…
4. i can still learn things and grow at my current job if i can handle the freakin stress of everything here

so, where does that leave me? basically i’m stuck somewhere that has great professional growth opportunities for me. i have the ability to get my hands into anything i want here. network security? we got it. network design and maintenance? got that too. email? sure, both ms exchange AND some linux stuff. general windows networking and administration? yep, tons of that. SQL server admin? yep, can do that too. pay for training and testing/certification? they’ll do it.

BUT, there is a down side to all of this variety. if you look at any corporate model for IT, you’ll find that they tend to compartmentalize and specialize people in their IT groups. what does that mean? well, basically, they have one guy that is their email master. they have another guy who is their networking guru, and another for security. here they have…. me. i do all that and more (desktop support anyone?) the problem with this is that i cannot possibly get fluent in one thing well enough to get myself into a job somewhere else.

now i’m stuck, basically hating almost every minute i’m here, hoping and waiting for them to get another person in to our department so that i can finally get enough time (say even just one entire day without interruptions) to learn new things and try to fix the stuff that is actually in my job description.

i’ll keep looking though, just in case…

so i work in IT. it’s basically a thankless, shit filled job. one thing i’ve come to notice is the way in which people relate to you as the “computer guy.” for one, people are always afraid of doing the wrong thing in front of me… afraid that i will somehow destroy their jobs by making their computer impossible to work with… or that i will turn them in for some crazy security related rule that they don’t know about. it makes it hard to be friendly with the people around me when they see me as somehow being above them or something.

haha little do they know that i could give two shits about what they do all day, or really what they do with their computers. as long as they aren’t fucking up my shit (i.e. infecting the whole place with virii — which is actually really hard to do since we lock their shit down tighter than a baby’s asshole at a priest convention) then they can feel free to do pretty much whatever.

but of course, this job induced distance between myself and my co-workers isn’t all that bad. i’m one to subscribe to the philosophy of “don’t shit in your own nest” i.e. making friends at work is bad b/c then they want to be friends when you go home too.

and who the hell can relax at home if they have people from work there? i sure fuckin can’t…