blog.benwong.me

This is a little late. I remembered I posted a few resolutions last year, so I thought I had better at least follow up on those resolutions.

Become a Better Programmer

I probably have become a little better just through work, but I don’t think I’ve followed through on what I proposed. Work was hectic this past year, but circumstances have changed and I think I can do it this. I’m going set aside sometime for reading that big pile of programming books stacked up behnd me.

Listen to More Music

I did ok with this one. I’ve expanded my music horizon a bit more this year. That was apparent when a friend asked what sort of music I listened to and she had never heard any of the bands I mentioned. Will have to keep at this one.

Be more organised

I put a lot of effort into this one. Not sure if I’ve improved, but I certainly learned a lot about being organised in the past year. I’ve recently started trying out The Pomodoro Technique, so I’m heading in the right direction.

What I’ve install so far on my fresh Ubuntu 9.04 install.

• NVIDIA drivers – Drivers for NVIDIA video card
• VLC – Media player
• Gnome Do – App launcher (like Mac’s Quicksilver and Win’s Launchy)
• CompizConfig Settings Manager – Config for visual effects
• VirtualBox – Virtualisation software
• Adobe AIR and TweetDeck – Twitter client

I’m sure this list will get longer before the day is done. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Currently enjoying my fresh install of Ubuntu Desktop 9.04. Ubuntu is looking more and more polished with every release. If I were Microsoft I would be shaking in my boots. Who’s going to pay for $500 – 600 for Windows and Office when you can download this for free.

This morning I’ve been setting up a fresh install of Windows on a new HD. I’ve been setting up Windows a lot lately, so I thought I’d create a checklist of the things I usually do when I first login.

1. Install hardware drivers – motherboard, network, video, sound
2. Install service packs and updates
3. Avast! – anti virus
4. Firefox – web browser
   • Install add-ons: Firebug, Web Developer, Twitterfox, Ubiquity, Delicious
5. Launchy – app launcher
6. Notepad++ – Notepad replacement
7. 7-Zip – archiver
8. Filezilla – FTP
9. Keepass – password manager
10. DropBox – file sync
11. Change the orange flower user picture to something less girly

Web developers rejoice! Firebug goodness has been updated.

Firebug 1.3.0 Final Released

Hope you have a great 2009.

Merry Christmas everyone. Hope you all have a great day.

Hello. I’m Ben Wong. And this is my blog. I haven’t quite worked out what I’ll be writing about on this blog yet, but I’m hoping to work that out eventually.

For those who don’t know me, I guess I should introduce myself.

When people ask me what I do for a living, I say I’m a Web Developer. Officially, I’m a Senior Web Architect at Orli-Tech in Brisbane, Australia. I’m not much for titles, so I stick to calling myself a Web Developer.

Orli-Tech is traditionally a Microsoft shop. So I mainly work with ASP, ASP.NET and SQL Server at work. At home, I’m much more open-minded about technology. I’m powered by multiple Macs (Macbook Pro, Macbook and Mac mini) and a PC duel-booting Windows Vista and Ubuntu.

As you can tell, I’m a bit of a geek. But I’m the moderately sporty and adventurous type, because I play basketball, cycle, hike and travel the world whenever I can. I’m also a bit of a shutterbug.

Well, that’s about as much I want to write about myself for now. And I think that’s enough to get you going.