I’ve been working pretty hard on getting things ready to migrate this pMachine piece of crap blog over to Subtext:

• I wrote a BlogML exporter for pMachine so I can get my entries out.
• I’ve got an ID conversion mapping utility that runs through the BlogML and maps the old pMachine ID to the new Subtext friendly URL.
• I’ve got a URL rewriting utility that takes the ID map and runs through the BlogML, finding any old links and updating them with the new URL in Subtext so cross-post links work.
• I wrote a utility to get around a sort of crazy bug in Subtext comment import where newlines automatically get converted to line-break tags and line-break tags that already exist in the comment get encoded so they actually display.
• I’ve got a converter that takes the ID mapping and converts it to a PHP array so I can use that array as part of a redirection mechanism that will take people hitting the old permalinks in pMachine format to the new Subtext location.
• I’ve figured out how I’m going to handle the relocation of the images in posts and such so things should still work (pMachine has an interesting sort of macro substitution it uses for upload locations so it’s not as straightforward as you might think).

All I really have left to do is a final test install/import of the data. Assuming that goes well, I should be able to do a pretty quick swap and import. I’m really looking forward to it. I already have some interesting ideas of things I’d like to do.

I’m working with a print program - Microsoft Publisher - on a little project at home and without going into a bunch of crap you don’t care about, let it suffice to say I’m trying to get it to print full-bleed on my HP Deskjet 5940. It’s just not happening.

The printer is fully capable of printing full-bleed on 8.5 x 11 paper. I’ve seen it work. But right now, I’m frustrated because no matter what I do, no matter what I try, there’s always this half-inch border along the bottom of the page I’m trying to print.

I know what you’re going to say - that you need that half inch because the printer has to have something to hang onto at the end as it prints the last bit on the page and pushes it out. I thought so, too, and since the stuff I’m printing is mostly at the bottom, I used the printer driver option to automatically rotate the thing I’m trying to print 180 degrees. Put the bottom at the top and there’s no border, right? Or at least the border’s reduced to that little quarter-inch bit that’s always at the top?

Nope. Still getting the half inch, as though it was still printing the bottom of the page at the bottom.

After fussing with this for a half hour or so, using up probably 20 sheets of paper and more ink than it would have taken to print the whole project eight times over, I finally realized what it was:

Microsoft Publisher is trying to help.

Rather than letting the printer take care of the fact it can’t print that last half inch, Publisher is actually determining the capabilities of my printer and sending the print job to the printer minus that half inch, anticipating the border the printer will require.

And there’s the problem with software trying to be too smart. I’m not a big Publisher wiz by any means, but in no dialog I’ve seen has there been an option for “Stop trying to help me by optimizing the printer output and nuking the half inch I really wish was there.” It’s designed for folks who need the default options, making intelligent guesses at what needs to happen.

This is why I shy away from software that exposes only exposes the big “DO IT” button. Sometimes the big “DO IT” button is exactly what I need. Maybe even 70% of the time. The rest of the time, I need the options. If there’s something you’re going to automatically assume for me - especially with respect to printing when you’re a printing program - I need to be able to override it. Ah, the trouble with intelligent software.

I’ve started a new project where we’re doing our best to get every developer familiar with all the parts of the system by moving people around a bit, XP style. The idea is that we want to break down the knowledge silos so there’s not just one person who knows how each system works. I think that’s a great idea. If someone wins the lottery (or gets hit by a bus), we don’t want the whole project to crumble.

That said, there’s a particular undertone to some of the moving that worries me: the notion that somehow we can get rid of subject matter experts and everyone will know everything about the system.

I don’t think that’s a realistic goal. I think it’s a great idea to get folks familiar with how the various parts of the system work, but the system itself is far too big and there are too many changes going on over the course of time for anyone to keep intimate familiarity with the entire system in their head. At some point, you’re going to have someone who has more knowledge about how one area of the system works than anyone else, and you’re back to the knowledge silo of a subject matter expert.

The topic of skill set comes up here, too. Some people are better than others at certain tasks, be it due to education, experience, or both. Good idea: peer mentoring involving these folks. Bad idea: thinking you can make everyone on the team as proficient as experienced individual just by switching people around. Not everyone is a DBA. Not everyone is an architect. It’s not realistic to expect you can swap people into those roles and hope the system comes out as coherent and high quality as if you just trusted the tasks to the folks with the relevant skill set.

From a time/savings standpoint, it also occurs to me that putting someone who is good at a task on that task will cost less and get the task done faster than if you decided to put a less familiar person on the task. And if you keep moving people around, you may never actually gain momentum - it’s hard to work fast when you’re trying to learn at the same time. Great experience for the developers, great knowledge distribution, not so great velocity.

There’s a reason the phrase “jack of all trades, master of none” came about. It’s great that folks want to be generalists, and spreading the wealth of knowledge is an admirable goal. But there will always be subject matter experts, and that’s not a bad thing. Rather than try to get rid of them, I might recommend taking advantage of their expertise and doing a little peer mentoring to spread knowledge without trying to abolish the notion entirely. You’ll educate your developers and be able to gain project momentum by targeting the specialized skill set to pertinent tasks, and that’s a Good Thing.

I, like most of America, tuned in for The Sopranos series finale on Sunday night, stoked for a cool ending to a cool show. And, like most of America, I left with nothing.

When I say “nothing,” I really mean it. The show didn’t really have an ending, it just sort of “stopped.” I picked up my remote control and flipped around to see if other channels were still broadcasting, pissed off thinking that I had lost my HBO signal at the last second. That’s not actually what happened - that ridiculous “instant cut to black in the middle of a scene” thing they pulled… that was the ending.

To be clear, after I sat and thought about it for a while and talked to my wife about it, I got it - the whole uncertainty thing, life going on and Tony always looking over his shoulder, never knowing what’s coming next. I get it.

I also get the whole “art vs. entertainment” debate. Was the show “art,” where series creator David Chase just finishes up his creation and calls it done? Or was it “entertainment,” where there should have been more fan service?

Does it even matter? The Sopranos was a great show, primarily driven by great characters, with an intriguing plot. This last season, which we waited a heck of a long time for, sort of jumped the shark by going entirely character driven and really just losing the whole “plot” portion. I watched week after week waiting for something to happen, and it only ever ended up being sort of the way Seinfeld described itself: A show about nothing.

Sure, we see Tony going around doing his mob thing and his family getting worried or going through trauma or whatever. But what actually happened in the last season? Aside from the last little bit where Tony’s crew starts getting killed off and Phil Leotardo getting killed, nothing.

Now, I’m all for great characters and character development. They’re integral parts of great storytelling. On the other hand, the word “story” is actually half of “storytelling,” and you can’t just lose the story part and just have character development.

The end of The Sopranos, to me, was the very definition of anticlimactic. If I had a time machine, I think I’d have to go back in time and tell myself not to watch because it’ll only piss me off. Or maybe I’d have to grab David Chase and force him to call a mulligan and do it over. Much as it might be construed as art on some level, people watch for entertainment.

Yesterday Jenn and I went over to my parents’ house because there were strange things afoot. My parents’ condo association has this overgrown area they need to clear the vegetation from but they wanted to do it in an environmentally friendly way. After looking at all the options, they hired a company called Noah’s Nibblers to do the work.

What they do is bring in goats - a lot of goats, like over 100 goats - and basically just cut them loose in the area that needs to be cleared. The goats eat the vegetation away, clearing the area without use of chemicals. Apparently they do a lot of work with the Army Corps of Engineers. I had no idea.

I’ve never seen that many goats in one place. I think my goat experience was pretty much limited to childrens’ petting zoos and such. Seeing literally a herd of goats mowing their way through an area is definitely something new.

Along with the herd, they brought a baby goat with them, less than 24 hours old, that the mother had rejected. We got a chance to hold him and feed him, and it was neat to see him walk his first few steps.

Anyway, that made for a pretty interesting Saturday. I’ve posted some pictures in a web album for those who want to see more. I don’t think the pictures really do it justice. The area they were eating down was on a hill, so it was tough to get a shot that really showed the craziness.