A new course started for me today, one about IT and it's both negative and positive effects on society. For this specific course I bought a book, Introduction to information systems : enabling and transforming business (2010) by Rainer, R. Kelly & Turban, Efraim. I went to the bookshop (online) I usually buy books from and looked it up, and it turned out to be the probably most expensive book I've ever bought, with a price tag boasting the shocking amount of 488KR!

I went to Amazon instead and found the same book for 67 SEK. What a difference, huh? Thank god (or whomever I/you believe in) there's international trade going on... and that the dollar isn't particularly expensive at the moment. That price includes shipping btw, something my 'normal' bookshop tends to provide for free, but anyway, I was going to post about how I bought the book at a fraction of the originally shocking high price, and all ended well, but this is the real world so there are no happy endings. Turns out Amazon didn't allow international shipping on the particular item I wanted, and after a thorough search it turned out that my regular bookshop was the cheapest available store after all. I felt cheated. Just hope I get the book before the first assignment deadline... on Sunday... but that'll be another story.

In another story, I've been programming.

So far I've thrown together a bunch of simple programs that do simple tasks like add together the sum of two numbers or calculate your age in months and days when you enter your age in years. C++ seems like a fun language so far, and I'm actually getting pretty hyped up about my studies for a change. Been typing a lot, too, practice. Been ordering a Nintendo DS and a bunch of games for it, too. Yeah I know I'm about 5 years behind schedule, I was waiting for the price to fall down. It did, so now I am (or will be in a couple of days when my order arrives) the proud owner of the almost latest Nintendo portable gaming system and a bunch of hopefully equally entertaining games. That's all for now. Later.

I still haven't bought a flatscreen TV though. :)

Savor. It won't last.

Yupp. It's been a sunny day. I've been typing. Stats below.

If you read the previous post on the typing subject you'll know I've been getting better, and 111 WPM is the new all-time high. :) Not good enough to get me on any highscore tables, but still mighty good speed if you ask me, and I'm the one blogging so of course you are (asking me). ;) I even got it twice in a row! What a lucky streak huh?

Other than typing I've been writing, and I took a couple of long walks. Though it's winter it feels like spring today, or did, when the sun was up. Warmth radiant and shimmering on nature's snowy Colgate smile. New week of work tomorrow, see you then!

Ugh. I'm tired. Spent most of the day walking from Bro to Kungsängen, from Kungsängen to Kallhäll and back from Kallhäll to Kungsängen. Just to make sure I've had enough exercise for the day I took another short walk when I got home. Almost 3 miles, 30 kilometers. My buddy Bear was present all the way to Kalhäll, and so was his cell, so here's a map of our tour for the tell. And show. Below.

I'll see you later.

The problem with relying on social websites rather than controlling all content through your own custom interface is that you don't really have a say in anything. They can change the layout however they want, they can do whatever they want, and the only choice you have is to either stop using the service or quit bitching and remain a loyal yet deeply aggravated user. I sent a ton of feedback to Youtube before they upgraded their video manager, when it was just a previewable upgrade. I pointed out some obvious flaws, hoping they would be fixed, but now I've had the video manager forcibly upgraded and NONE of the flaws I pointed out had been taken care of! Are they trying to make the service worse or what??

The new video manager is missing so much! What happened to the previous usability? It looks great but if feels like a downgrade in functionality. I can't list the files from A-Z anymore, if I have a series of videos that don't have a common name but rather a number at the beginning, I can't view them all in a list any longer! Copying the file title is also impossible for longer titles, you need to visit the video-specific page for this simple task. When I downloaded my videos from the old video manager I could copy and paste the video titles directly from the video manager to the files, now I can't. And the statistics column (which is the reason why titles no longer run their full length across the page) is a waste of page space if you disable statistics, which I have done. There should at least be some way to remove this column from the page. There's not.

I understand the need of a change for increased functionality, but this is the other way around! Design shouldn't be more important than usability! I sent YT this feedback too, and I hope it reaches the right people. I hope the layout changes for the better instead of the other way around. The way it is now it's not just something you need to get used to to fully appreciate the splendor of, it sucks! Some of the features from the old manager remain, some don't. Other than that there is nothing new, just a redesign. Looks beautiful. Tastes like crap.