Thursday, August 5, 2010

Smartie-Pants

Work has been a bit less boring the past few days. As I've said before, I'm scripting actions for a set top box. This is two fold, half of it is scripting user interactions with the box and checking the screen for movement and error codes. The other half is scripting the server to add and remove entitlements to the box's smartcard, and make sure that the TV scrambles and descrambles with it should.

It's obvious that I'm doing classic intern work. The supervisor needs these scripts written, but is too busy to write them himself, so he's having me do it for him. I'm not complaining, it's a welcome change from configuring and installing virtual machines. I'm not sorry to see the back of them.

Though I have a feeling the virtual machines will be coming back to me sooner than I think. Tomorrow morning I have a presentation and a demonstration for the virtual machines I've configured. Showing the testing teams how they work and how they're useful. It's my first presentation in a while, but I've never had trouble with them in the past, so I'm reasonably confident, although I'm not convinced I have a lot to talk about. I have a feeling they'll like the machines despite their shortcomings. They're a big time saver.

More and more of my friends are buying up smartphones now. I guess this is the thing that nerdy types do when they have money. In work, everyone has Blackberries, as well as Motorola Milestones, iPhones and Google Nexus Ones for personal use. At home they're carrying iPhones, HTC Desires, Palm Pres and Samsung Galaxys. I'm still happy with my little ol' Walkman phone for the moment. Though funds allowing, I do intend to buy that Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro that I've been talking about constantly for the past few months.

It's not just a thing about gadgets that I want it for, though I will say that it does come into it a bit. The main reason is that I intend to write an Android application for my Final Year Project. I'll obviously need a test device for this, and I don't think my roommate will appreciate me borrowing his phone every time I want to test my code on actual hardware.

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