I have been working on a web project for my new company. It’s a tracking system that I’m about to write in Ruby on Rails. The steep learning curve makes this beast a long time project. But I can see all the good stuff that’s in RoR so I feel I must learn it.

And for the first time in a long time, I’m actually looking forward to go to work. Even after I heard that we need to make a complete community site finished next month. This is actually an impossibility, as you all know.

So why do I still love this company even if the workload is getting to a point of being silly? The people that I work with. I have learned more during these few months, than I usually do in years. Yes, they are that smart.

My hopes is that I sooner or later can start to work on their intranet machines and swich over our mail system to something better.

I stumbled across this great webmail application called RoundCube. If you ever used Apples Mail program, you feel right at home. It’s still an early beta version 0.1, but already it’s very usable. Even on my over crowded G4 server it feels snappy. So this is a project I will keep my eyes on. First on my next feature wish-list is the ability to import address book data with VCARD.

You need a server with PHP and MySQL to set it up. Installation is really easy. You can configure it to automatically create accounts according to your IMAP login information.

Lisbon was great. Lot of work, but also time for some recreation. Parts of it is pretty poor, but all the portugese I met was friendly and helpful. Quite a difference from home. The friendly part I mean.

Unfortunately the food at the hotel was really bland. But most of the restaurants had excellent food. Lots of fish.

All my co-workers really helped me with my fear of flying, and really supported me. Thanks gang!

I’m going on a business trip to Portugal tomorrow. And I’m already nervous about flying.

We are going to give a first presentation of our new home page for the company that I work for. I’ve been working day and night on it, but it’s hard for someone who does not understand it to realize how much time it takes. And when working under these conditions, really stress me out. Back to the old “CAN’T BREATHE!” and panic attacks. This wouldn’t be much of a problem if I got to take mini brakes during the day. But there’s no time for it. If I had this job fifteen years ago, It would be the perfect setup. But I’m getting to old to maintain this stress level. I’m hoping that as soon as the web site goes live, I can start restructure there internal network and upgrade servers. Then I’m finally doing the IT Manager job I’m supposed to do.

Two of us has to give a demonstration of the new web on friday, but theres a lot of stuff that needs to get fixed. So I will probably work late tonight, and continue tomorrow on the plane.

Wich me luck!

Two month ago I bought a used Nintendo DS for the kids. And guess what, last month I bought a DS Lite for myself. After playing MarioKart DS and the new SuperMario bros I was hooked. But I also spend a lot of time with Brain Age and Big Brain Academy. And I have realized that I really suck at math. But the build in statistics shows improvement. The best score you can get is a brain like a 20 year old, and the first time I tried I was 80. At least now I’m down to 26. I guy at work caught me playing in the coffee room and he asked me if I borrowed it from a kid, and I said no. So he gave me this funny look, like you can’t be serious. But I don’t care, you need to nurture your inner child he he.

I looked at Sonys PSP, but the load time is to long.

I so I finally caved in and bought the web statistics program Mint. I’ve stumbled across articles mentioning it, but I haven’t caved in, until now. It costs $30, which I think is a bit steep. My first impression was a bit disappointing, because the standard package is quite limited. But after installing several plug-ins, called Peppers, It’s now a great logging device. A great source for information about Peppers is this blog called Peppermint Tea.

Here’s a list of my current favorite peppers:

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