I know exactly what you mean, I spend a hell of a lot of national lottery tickets to prove it. Sometimes you gotta get really tired and fed up and sick, in order to see the light at the other side ie what doesan't kill you makes you stronger. All jobs are like this, unless you own your own self-sustaining company and are sitting on a beach somewhere while other people make you money. But being a programmer in one company doesn't mean it wil be the same in another. I used to work in a games company which needed long hours from it's staff and yes it was a good end product but over time you do start wondering if there's something different available. I think it's easy to lose sight of the other things you could be doing, when you're up to the eyeballs in work or hours (not necessarily tied, I found). The ups and downs are very misleading also, when a job is going wrong, making you're behind, or you've taken the wrong path of development about 2 months ago and now have to make it all up. It's easy to be negative and convince yourself you want to get out. But then twhen it's going well you wonder what all teh fuss was about. I still can't get my head around this! I suppose if you wake up and cry consistently for 6 months, time to leave. But you do have to wait things out to see whether the sun is shining above the clouds.

Ben Glancy Software Developer

Can you have an hours nap while it's filling up your tank?

Ben Glancy Software Developer Articad Ltd

For that would be an equiminical matter...*cough*

Ben Glancy Software Developer Articad Ltd

Sounds like you're talking about the draw priority of the images. And who knows what you're talking about in terms of programming/image editors? Programmatically (with GDI+ for example: You shouldn't have to make the frame transparent. If you draw the frame first, then draw the image to be viewed in the frame second. Voila. Don't scale the image to be viewed in the frame bigger than the frame, it makes no sense anyway does it? With an art tool of some kind: Most 2d art tools have the concept of layers or draw priority, have the frame as a background layer and the image to be viewed as a foreground layer. Oh, don't draw the foreground layer bigger bigger than the background layer. Of course if you really need the image to be viewed in the frame to be larger than the background frame image, but not visible outside the frame... You can use a chroma key colour. The chroma key colour would be inside the viewing area of the frame. Your viewing image would be slotted inside wherever this colour is. This colour must not be present in the frame itself or you will get your viewing image bleeding into it. That is, unless you can define the area of the viewing area of the frame, which means you could just as easily crop your viewing image without the hassle of a chroma system. Next time, give more details of your problem.

Ben Glancy Software Developer Articad Ltd

You can view it positively and forgivingly like that or you can view that the hardware actually does the job at hand, but the software doing it is rushed, "clunky" and could be a whole load better for the price one pays. Keep it in perspective, I've had Nokia phones that look like no thought at all has gone into the interface, virtual keyboards appearing OVER the text you are supposed to be typing on... system crashes when more than one app is run (consistently), not to mention in built memory that the CPU cannot handle to save it's life. It seems to be that complacency is everything, care and attention to a product being sold to people means nothing. The whole video calling thing was a sick joke on the phone I had, they sold it as a feature but it was rare that a call could even get through, never mind actually use it. Yet I was paying for it still despite no quality. They have a nerve, that's all Ican say. And no, I dont have a mobile phone anymore. And I doubt I ever will until they actually give value for the money I pay.

Ben Glancy Software Developer Articad Ltd

If you resize the image to be greater than the frame, doesn't it stand to reason that it will appear outside of the frame...????

Ben Glancy Software Developer Articad Ltd

So basically what you are saying is that you agree with me. Most mobile phone companies promote WAP, on TV adverts, on the internet websites... as something fantastic to have. You can do this do that... (e.g download ringtones, games etc) in fact it's just a big joke. Should it really have a stop gap? A stop gap? Sorry a what? It's either a product or it isn't in my book. You don't sell something until it's finished and polished. Doing it early is just their way of getting customers onto the bandwagon before it's done. And also to say:"Look we can do this first/as well". Unfortunately I think it does more harm than good. The whole notion of a 'stop gap' is being desensitized to the consumer for their financial benefit. Remember we are being sold these half hearted measures before they are finished. Imagine HDTV manufacturers selling their HDTV running at half the update speed of a normal tv because it has twice as many horizontal scanlines. Yes, unwatchable. But hey its a stop gap until they get real HDTV's!

Ben Glancy Software Developer Articad Ltd

Is it just me, or does the software for most things seem slightly behind the hardware? I'm mainly talking about mobile phones. Is it really right that one should have to endure all the little pauses and delays while using an OS on a gadget/PC/phone whatever? I mean, you only have one life, and high blood pressure kills. Surely it's beneficial for the NHS, and psychological clinics, to have the software run like a dream on a phone... I've lost count of how many times I want to send a text, but it takes 5 seconds for the text window to appear. And why do they make WAP to be so brilliant and fantastic, when in fact on most phones it's a joke. Slow, chuggy, expensive, useless.

Ben Glancy Software Developer Articad Ltd

Why does the latest OS always have to chug it a little more. Can't we let the hardware catch back up to the software first? Why can't software be something that the machine can run with it's eyes closed. The hardware gets faster, and they slow it down a bit more. They add a little power to one end of the scales, then they add a little weight to the software scale at the other side. I'm sick of the little delays on my machine for one reason or another, all day long. By the end of the day my heart feels like it wants to burst, I constantly feel like I'm waiting for the result of a scratchcard as I'm scratching it... The frustration builds up and up. I open a window, I have to sit for 1.5 -> 2 seconds while it opens. If one program has problems, I can't open any others, and when I can I can't do anything useful with them. It takes too long to boot, too long to close down, even deleting a small file seems to take 10 seconds. I know now people will think I have a slow machine. I have a Pentium IV 2.8 504mb RAM. My brandnew laptop at home does exactly the same thing. It's the software, they're bulking it up too much. Just because they can, doesn't mean they should. Ahhh. Didn't make me feel any better.

Ben Glancy Software Developer Articad Ltd

I'd go with B of course. She sounds like one of my line managers, so I'm well used to her. You didn't mention her physical attractiveness, which could possibly override all her negative personality traits.

Ben Glancy Software Developer Articad Ltd

Sounds like kicking your feet away is your insecurity! He's your husband, not some guy you recently met in the mall :) As in, I think he's accepted you warts and all, enjoy the feet touching!

Ben Glancy Software Developer Articad Ltd

That sounds like todays world

Ben Glancy Software Developer Articad Ltd

Yeah I'm with you on that one. Probably most projects in the world don't have ideal code bases. But taking a few steps back in a problem area with every programming task to see how this could best serve evolution and future proofing would not hurt. I feel your frustration with the cool widgets, a nice clean, sparkling code base is sooo much more scaleable than a bad one. And putting in whizzy features on top of it increases reliance on the black stuff. Pun intended.

Ben Glancy Software Developer Articad Ltd

Well I've been programming commercially for about 6-7 years, and one thing in that short(?) time that I can say for sure is that if you can pass the buck to a reasonably reliable third party specialist library then a 'cool plugin widget' is a good idea. However you're probably talking about if the code base currently has problems, and could do with a boost from the ground up... instead of mid air above rickety planks, where adding a cool widget is merely anchoring the bad code base for a bit longer.

Ben Glancy Software Developer Articad Ltd

I stand told. I was busy being born and breastfed in 1979. But you're cheating because you've been a manager, so you have that in your profile. Something that sets you apart from the bog standard, which is what that guy was saying.

Ben Glancy Software Developer Articad Ltd

Well I agree. I have to admit I've never met an older programmer in their fifties who wasn't a manager. Programming is largely a young person's profession. And one of the most important things is to keep moving and evoluting to up-to-date technologies. Better technologies usually mean faster development and less reinventing the wheel. Focus on the polish, not the basic features. Even if you are way behind, make a start.

Ben Glancy Software Developer Articad Ltd