Signing off for 2008

I’d like to thank all of you, my loyal readers, for sticking around throughout the last year. It looks like 2009 may prove to be even more interesting than this year… but probably not in a good way.

Expect to see a more tightly focused Tech Teapot in the new year. Also, a move over to a new home and a spring clean of the design too.

PowerTime, a time series database written specifically for .NET and PowerShell, has also recently taken some significant baby steps to production quality. I had a mental block for the last couple of months on how to do the database locking. Things have worked out well and I’m pleased with the result. I’ve created an ever faithful unit test to keep me on the straight and narrow. Expect more news in the first quarter of 2009 as the project moves towards its first beta.

My favourite post over the last year was What to do if you’re newly qualified and can’t get your first job, if only because it touches on a topic that is going to be all too real for a lot of recent grads. I feel for you guys & gals and wish you the best for 2009.

[Put on your best Comic Book Guy voice when you read this] Worst Post Ever was, rightly outed by Peter, TWiki begets Foswiki. A testament to what happens when you don’t proof read your post properly. I’ve bought myself a copy of The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and you may rest assured that I will be studying it hard over the Christmas holiday. I’ve already studied the punctuation chapter and feel that my commas have never been so deftly positioned. Not that that’s saying very much. I am steadfast about semi-colons though, I’m with Vonnegut in this regard, I’d prefer you to rip out all of my teeth with naught but a pair of pliers than sully a post with one.

My Christmas books for 2008 are Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut (I’ve read it before but it is such a pleasure to read it again) and the second book in Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun trilogy. If the second book is as good as the first then I am in for some darn fine reading…

That’s me signing off for 2008, hope to see you in 2009. Jack x