tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9958266796005164462024-12-01T00:01:00.365+13:00Intermittent ramblings from a girly geekManda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.comBlogger122125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-26015431705045611702024-04-05T17:38:00.017+13:002024-04-05T18:10:36.199+13:00

It's amazing how quickly April comes around each year when you're AuDHD and have a fleeting grasp on time, but here it is, April again, and time for Autism Acceptance Month.   Something I'm quite passionate about since being diagnosed, is making work a less stressful place for those of us who are neurodivergent. I do this through being open about my diagnosis and by giving

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0Auckland, New Zealand-36.850882700000007 174.7644881-65.161116536178852 139.6082381 -8.5406488638211613 -150.0792619tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-86882210092037871232019-04-05T17:50:00.001+13:002024-04-12T11:30:03.484+12:00

I have an aversion to meetings. I do understand some people like to discuss things and talk about things and that’s how they work best, but we don’t all work well that way. What’s best for one person may be very disruptive for another. The situation It's 4pm on Friday and we've come to the meeting. You explained everything perfectly in the first five minutes but you could've just emailed

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-1817481976018176062018-12-11T11:45:00.002+13:002018-12-11T11:46:01.599+13:00

How to maximise points and get in the top 100 Strongest Lord Event is in three phases: Building strength - most points come from building upgrades Resource gathering - you can get high points without annoying other teams Killing enemies - attack or defend - you get points either way If you want to protect your resources and troops, keep your shields up at all times. City and mine shields

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-41900759907690404992015-01-19T15:17:00.000+13:002015-01-19T15:17:15.064+13:00

It's been a busy 2½ years helping out first with OSDC (Open Source Developers Conference) and then immediately jumping in to helping run lca2015 (Linux Conf Australia). Looks like another may be en route as well... watch this space... Whilst it's very rewarding helping to run a conference, there are also some traps for new players that I've learned about on the way. Luckily the first

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0Auckland, New Zealand-36.8484597 174.76333150000005-37.2549887 174.11788450000006 -36.4419307 175.40877850000004tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-69211486168836023262014-05-15T15:28:00.001+12:002024-04-12T11:29:13.500+12:00

Setting up a continuous delivery process can be quite a momentous task, especially when retrofitting to an existing product, however, I'm quite lucky with a current project in that we're at the very start of the project so there are no existing processes in place. Once you've read this, I'd love feedback on my solution and ideas for improvements if you have any. When I joined the project the

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-71505566989484345992013-11-17T16:20:00.001+13:002013-11-17T16:20:42.034+13:00

A while back I looked into getting Lasik because contact lenses were uncomfortable after a few hours due to dry eye, and glasses are just impractical when walking dogs in the rain or going to the gym. It took me ten years to pluck up the courage as I'm a bit sqeamish with eyes, but eventually off I trotted to the eye clinic with my loan offer all sorted for the fees so that I can do things

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-75056167242459484062013-11-14T10:39:00.000+13:002013-11-14T10:39:09.570+13:00

The new phone has shipped overnight. If the US postal service gets a shifty on, it could arrive next week and the queue of people wanting to check it out before I leave MBIE will not be disappointed. I have turned into an excited Tigger! Bounce, bounce, bounce.

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-54248839417469262012013-11-13T14:27:00.001+13:002013-11-13T14:27:20.064+13:00

I've needed a new phone for a while now. My first edition HTC Desire from a gazillion years ago is starting to get quite battered and its second battery is now starting to fail, prompting me to finally give up and buy a new phone. The problem I have with buying a new phone is researching them; I always end up finding something amazing that isn't yet available, which means a new phone never

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-91758823224090619982012-10-26T22:43:00.000+13:002012-10-26T22:43:02.809+13:00

I've uploaded the presentation from tonight's talk at CodeMania after dark.    It was great fun showing everyone how easy it is to create your own Google map, and it was quite interesting the number of people afterwards who said they'd always thought it was something difficult to do.   Lots of people are hopefully now going away to play with customising their own Google maps

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-62736955013984242912012-10-22T20:45:00.000+13:002012-10-22T20:45:38.097+13:00

26th October 2012 Codemania After Dark Hopefully you've already got your tickets to this spiffing event that's happening on the 26th October. Info here:  http://codemania.co.nz/ I'm doing a lightning talk on creating custom Google maps - very lightning, how to create a map in 10 mins - phew... this will require some fast talking. If you're not going to the event and you want to check

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-26596181616525402382012-06-07T11:53:00.000+12:002012-06-07T11:58:20.869+12:00

I've just started to use Java, having never coded with it before, and today ran into a bit of trouble with date comparisons.  The obvious option that I wanted to use had been deprecated so I needed to find an alternate. Whilst Google and StackOverflow are normally my very best friends when it comes to this sort of issue, today they were only a little helpful, pointing me in roughly the

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-61569050503301136362012-02-26T14:47:00.001+13:002012-02-26T14:47:43.810+13:00

Following a couple of tweets earlier today stating that our Internet in NZ is somewhat better than we folk who complain think it is, I decided to do a bit of my own research.    I've found in the past that many 'facts' stated in newspapers are outrageously wrong as journalists have a tendency to misread or misrepresent data in order to create a good headline, this means I like to dig

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-27475864212454329162011-11-29T11:22:00.001+13:002024-04-12T11:30:52.163+12:00

Okay, time to bite the bullet.  I'm always going on about how great Google Apps are and promoting them to other people, but for some reason I'm not fully utilising Google to their full potential when it comes to my own business, so to see how easy it is to set up with Google Apps, I've decided to migrate my website from its current opensource FuzzyLime CMS to Google.I was planning a complete

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-3564830412857532842011-10-17T10:56:00.000+13:002011-10-17T19:06:23.501+13:00

Last week I had the opportunity to attend a Google presentation in Auckland. It was a chance to catch up on the latest news from Google Apps and to also get a first look at an actual Chromebook. Chromebooks aren’t yet available (officially) in NZ and Ed from Google said that they’re due for release here early next year. If you can’t wait that long then Amazon are doing some good deals and you

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-45484557793625070502011-10-14T09:37:00.003+13:002011-10-14T09:40:40.575+13:00

One of my all time heroes died this past week at the age of 70.  A man without whom modern coding would not exist, and yet news reports have missed this sad event.   I sent the following email to NZStuff in the hope that some coverage will belatedly occur.  The younger iOS generation should know about dmr and what he did for all of us. --------------------- Hi, There's been a

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-10629320469018408982011-03-29T10:34:00.000+13:002011-03-29T10:34:32.703+13:00

I'm a great fan of Agile, Six Sigma and any other tools that make development, project management and profitability easier to achieve. I also believe that you should use the tools and not allow the tools to use you. You don't have to worship at the church of Agile in order to reap benefits from its various tools, and you certainly don't have to pick one style over another, pick, choose and

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-88174788656685920312011-02-17T20:30:00.002+13:002011-02-17T20:42:43.978+13:00

After getting my new phone last year, an HTC Desire, I’d been having great fun taking loads of photos with the camera, it rocks... I haven’t used my real camera since getting the phone, but then just before Christmas disaster struck.  Okay, maybe more of a minor inconvenience than a disaster, but I have a cure that others may not know about. The basic hardware layout of phones means that

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-14956161339943736412011-01-31T12:25:00.000+13:002011-01-31T12:25:39.471+13:00

Did you know, that in 2005 Volvo created a car for women, that was designed by women. What I want to know is, how they managed to find a group of women even more sexist against women drivers than most men are?The car has:No bonnet or any access to the car's internal workings (women don't need to look at all that scary stuff) An engine that automatically sends a message to the garage when it needs

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-58981279137457329652011-01-13T19:43:00.001+13:002011-01-13T19:44:26.772+13:00

If you tend to only read the local news, you may have missed the news that rhino poachers in South Africa are now being shot dead   This seems to be rather drastic but I bet it helps lower the poaching incidents and I think that this approach would work for recidivist drink drivers.  Here’s my plan (I’ll put it in place when I’m queen of the World):1.    

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-25796491925676471972010-12-05T10:31:00.000+13:002010-12-05T10:31:03.343+13:00

Google, you rock!  The Navigation add-on on the Android is rather spiffing, especially now you've fixed it so that it works in NZ.   However, there is one wee bitty problem in the function where you can speak your destination, though it is proving somewhat amusing.  We've tried Kiwi, English, South African, Welsh and German accents, which all result in some interesting locations;

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-13275775234195638812010-12-05T10:23:00.000+13:002010-12-05T10:23:33.187+13:00

DB2 is currently driving me insane. All the normal things you can do in SQLServer seem to be missing, PIVOT for example, which in SQLServer allows you to.... wait for it.... cross tab your queries, weird that eh?  Though if they'd been really creative about it then it could have caused your data to do a rendition of swan lake before settling down into a cross-tab; that I would pay to see.

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-80224991787152057822010-08-24T21:24:00.000+12:002010-08-24T21:24:35.816+12:00

Last week I trundled along to a full day event covering various aspects of Oracle DB schemas, indexing and database optimisation. Why did I do this? From a personal point of view I like to understand SQL from all the different viewpoints. I spent 2 years as a Sybase developer, I am currently studying for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 exams and have recently been focusing on performance tuning

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-39130596367374618042010-06-30T12:13:00.000+12:002010-06-30T12:13:48.134+12:00

We were having one of the usual random discussions at work today, you know the kind, conversations that start off relatively normally, degrade into utter cobblers and then go off at weird tangents and you end up discussing cycle powered internet. Overview In order to surf the Internet, staff members need to use the pedal attachment on their PC to generate surfing minutes. Plus points Less

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-51530517951246333212010-04-30T09:36:00.000+12:002010-04-30T09:36:39.312+12:00

Weird things with dates I have a simple sql script that extracts raw data from a quality centre database and extracts it to an excel spreadsheet, part of this is shown below: SELECT bg_bug_id as DefectID, bg_detection_date as RawDetectionDate, convert(varchar(10), bg_detection_date, 103) as FormatDetDate, bg_closing_date as RawClosingDate, convert(varchar(10),

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995826679600516446.post-42400806804060244242010-04-28T10:18:00.000+12:002010-04-28T10:18:14.334+12:00

Now those of you who know me well will know that I love maths, I can spend hours and hours playing around with equations and figures and formulae, however a friend (http://rocko.co.nr/) told me at the weekend about the Monty Hall Problem and this one got me right in the logic chip. My first reaction to this was ‘that can’t be right, it doesn’t make mathematical sense’. It is a very counter

Manda QoPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16396734203581051230noreply@blogger.com0