Alex Pooley's Blog

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Easter has brought a bounty of chocolate and public holidays and I’ve had a gut full of both. I know that if I was in my previous job I would be loving this four day weekend, but now that I actually enjoy what I do I’m tired of wasting time and would simply just like to “get on with it”. That said, it’s been nice catching up with people and spending time with Allison but while my income remains at zero dollars and zero cents I can’t help but feel a sense of _urgency_!

While I’m talking about Easter I’d just like to point out how absurd this society has become. We have a 60% divorce rate but yet we’re a Christian country. Most people don’t go to church or practice any sprituality (until they need something) but yet eat fish on Friday, wish people a “happy Easter”, and hand out over priced chocolate eggs/bunnies in flashy alfoil at Easter. As a point of interest, Cadbury and Mars have been in long competition to supply American (and other?) troops chocolate during times of war. One of the companies even created a special melt resistant chocolate bar for the Gulf War. Anyway, these same companies are creating those “lovely” eggs and bunnies that are handed out during Easter, a religious occassion. I suppose that’s to be expected though when religious fanaticism is a pre-requisite to blowing people up.

I’m having yet another one of those Spock moments where you fail to comprehend the irrational nature of humanoids.

It’s 4am and I can’t sleep. My head’s racing like crazy! This is a particularly extreme example of how I’ve been sleeping for the last two weeks or so. I have noticed I have been far more intense since I arrived back from my honeymoon. I thought the long weekend would help me but it hasn’t. Ah well…

My staff and I are working around the clock to push out the best chat tool ever.

msgpad is coming along! My real problems right now are sleeping at night without dreaming of code, and dragging myself off the computer to do “other” stuff like.. drinking, eating.

Thanks to everyone who has already signed up for the msgpad beta in May! If you haven’t signed up, but would like too then please “head over to the registration page.”:http://msgpad.com Yesterday I spent cleaning up msgpad code. I ended up re-working the chat interface substantially so the code is far more intuitive now. It’s amazing how you can feel when you’re working with or against the design grain.

Before today my computer chair used to sit on top of two carpet mats to protect the carpet. But today I bought a large square of MDF so I can actually use the chairs wheels now. It’s hard to describe how annoying the mats were. This is all part of my larger plan to improve my office work environment to hopefully help productivity and motivation. I also have my eyes on a Dell 24″ LCD… No really, looking at my 19″ CRT 45 degrees to my left is not good for the neck and back! Bad Feng Shui!

It’s pretty clear that some still have it better than me in my own office.

I did some finer grained analysis of my competition for msgpad and turned up an interesting conclusion. The majority of the players, including all the big ones (Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, etc) are all using traditional desktop software techniques. This means they have different software variations depending on operating system and device (computer, mobile). For companies with lots of cashola, that’s not a problem I guess. But I’ve covered all platforms and devices with a single code base thanks to XHTML, CSS, and Javascript. In my case, it has been the difference between delivering a beta next month, and delivering nothing at all.

If this doesn’t underline the changes taking place *right now*, then I don’t know what will.

If you want to preview msgpad in May 2006, then “please register your interest.”:http://msgpad.com