I posted last week about the joys of being a programmer when the scope creep becomes scope sprint and no matter how exactly you follow the design spec they provided, that’s not what they wanted at all.

Today announces the release of the same application, 80% re-written, with all the new requested functionality.

Of course, I’m fully expecting to get beaten up again, because they’ve had a whole week to think about it and the new features will spark even more ideas.

This thing started as a simple data storage project. Enter the data, look at the data, perhaps modify the data. I was told point blank that it was not to be used for reporting.

It now generates reports-o-plenty, does email notifications, and is so user friendly, a 6 year old can use it.

I’m sure that I’ll be re-writing it again by the end of the day.

Oh yeah… the work week begins.

First work day of the new year, and already, I’m praying for a quick death.

Server problems, application problems, and the fact that people can’t/wont give you a product design spec that actually meets their expectations.

“Make an application that does this but not that”.

<insert two weeks and a fully functional application that matches the spec>

“Why doesn’t the application do that?!? I need it to do that right away!!!”

I shall now place upon my head the mighty turban of all knowledge and write them an application that provides everything that might be, complete with flash pie charts and animated bar graphs. It will tell you all about your data, remind you to water the plants in your cubicle, and propel you straight up the corporate ladder with stunning velocity.

Then I’ll never have to deal with your ass again. They don’t let me talk to important people.

In other news…. I purchased a couple of lottery tickets yesterday.

New Year’s Eve was a rockin’ good time at Casa de WWBD!

The house was full of people, we drank dandy beverages, and fireworks ensued at midnight.

Of course, the next day, I was in full “recovery” mode.

Today, we took down the tree, removed the lights from the front of the house (I don’t want to be that guy who still has Christmas lights on his house in July), and did some general “after the holiday’s” clean-up. My recycle bin is chock full of bottles. 🙂

Tomorrow begins the back to work thing. Joy! Fortunately, I completed all my end of year tasks, so things shouldn’t be too chaotic.

There’s still a few bugs with the server. I had one user who wasn’t able to get email (they were over disk quota) and another who couldn’t ftp (different login than before). I also still need to get an e-commerce site up for a couple of the domains I host, but other than that, it’s coming along nicely. I’m hoping to get all the kinks out of it this week.

Ok… it’s been a few days since Christmas. You’ve had time to relax, reflect, and clean up all the damn wrapping paper.

Christmas at Casa de WWBD went well.

We spent Christmas Eve just sitting around and relaxing. Of course, we had the kids sit in front of the tree and let them open one present (the same as we do every year). This year, they got to open pajamas (actually, that’s what they get to open on Christmas Eve every year).

My wife and I started that tradition when our eldest learned to walk. This way… they’re in something nice and new and presentable on Christmas day. Of course, they’re going to pass this tradition on to their children and have no idea why they do it… and that makes me happy.

Christmas day was good as well. My children got up (and my… they looked spiffy in their new pajamas) and we proceeded to do the presents. We started, as always, with the gifts that Santa left, then my youngest son donned the Santa cap and was the distributor of gifts from under the tree.

I got some very cool things (huge thanks to Eve for the red Swingline stapler!!).

After that was over, we hit the kitchen and started cooking like mad. We had the whole famn damily coming over at 2:00 and had to get things ready. Turkey, Hamm, pies, green bean casserole, etc.

The food was ready at 3:00 and pretty much everyone was there. We ate, then played games, had a couple “beverages” (ok… some had a few more, but I stole their car keys… so it was all good). We finally got everyone out of there at midnight.

Then my wife went to bed and I fired up my laptop (because I had to work the graveyard shift… but am able to do it from home).

Seriously? good times (except for the working graveyard bit? that blew goats).

How was your Christmas?

This weekend, my sons had friends over. These friends used my computer.

While I’m not sure where they went on the internet, I’m fairly sure it wasn’t a truly wholesome and family friendly joyride.

When I fired up my PC on Saturday night, I was greeted to the joys of SpyAxe being installed and a few extra special links added to my favorites. While the favorites are easy enough to clean up, removing SpyAxe is not.

For those unfamiliar with SpyAxe, let me give you my experience with it.

In my opinion, it’s extortion ware. It installs on your computer just by viewing a website, then appears in your tool pallet (by the system clock) and starts whining about how your machine is infected with spyware (yes it is… it has SpyAxe on it now!). The only way to fully remove it is to purchase their spyware removal tool. Finding the removal tool is easy enough, because your web browser is hijacked to go there, regardless of what you’ve set your default webpage to, every time you launch your browser. If you have the audacity to click on a link from your favorites, it tells you that you can’t go there because YOUR COMPUTER IS INFECTED WITH SPYWARE!

I truly hope there’s a special place in hell for people who write software like that… a place that involves stinging nettles being rammed into the orifice du jour with red hot pokers. Repeat daily for eternity.

I did find some tools to remove this little gem with, but they were sadly lacking. They would remove one part of the problem, but not another. Both Spybot Search & Destroy and Ad-Aware were also unable to correct the issue. I finally ended up scrubbing my C: drive and reinstalling windows.

The authors of SpyAxe claim that they don’t engage in such practices, but rather, some of their affiliates with less than shining morals are responsible. Why are they still affiliates then?

*sigh*

Apparently, as of November 25th, they’ve ported this little gem to affect the latest version of Firebox as well… so it doesn’t much matter what browser you use. I’ve now installed TeaTimer on my machine, which protects my registry and system files from being modified without my permission. Sure… it’s a pain in the ass, but it’s far easier than scrubbing my hard drive when things like this happen (and I would rather spend the afternoon formatting and reinstalling than give one cent to a software company that does such things).