Google: You need a fast website to rank well.
Me: Ok, so why does your Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Google Optimize code drag my site down to the seventh circle of Hell in performance?
Google: You need a fast website to rank well.
Me: ...

Had one of those unicorn coding moments where my from-scratch code worked the first time I wrote and tested it. That hasn’t happened in a long time.

How I feel when I ask a question on StackOverflow...

Looking for help for my daughter who is an American exchange student in Germany struggling to learn to code Java in a classroom that only speaks German. She is using Java-Editor for her assignments but doesn’t know how to translate English-based tutorials into German. Like, what’s the German word for “properties” for finding the properties tab in the UI? That sort of thing. Is there an English to German glossary, or better yet a way to switch the UI to English?

I don’t speak German but I do code, so trying to help her is difficult.

Thanks for any help.

I bought a Samsung 34” ultra wide monitor for the express purpose of being able to arrange multiple windows however I deemed necessary for productivity. Only to find out that it natively only offers a single vertical split. The software they provide to offer more split options simply does not work the way it says it will. And DisplayFusion software is no better.

Is it seriously 2018 and we still don’t have a simple way to make the most of a widescreen monitor? Good grief!!!!!

Even Santa has CAPTCHA.

Some programmer or QA person somewhere in the world is having a moment of great reflection on the subject of thoroughly testing their code. If not that, then on the subject of a super crappy manager who knew better and pushed to production anyway.

“Then in September this year, nearly three years later, he got a letter from Wells Fargo. "Dear Jose Aguilar," it read, "We made a mistake… we're sorry." It said the decision on his loan modification was based "on a faulty calculation" and his loan "should have been" approved.

"It's just like, 'Are you serious? Are you kidding me?' Like they destroyed my kids' life and my life, and now you want me to – 'We're sorry?'"

https://cbsnews.com/news/...

Google is being evil.

More Than 600 Google Employees Are Demanding an End to Project Dragonfly
https://gizmodo.com/more-than-600-g...

Does anyone here have experience with the eBay iOS or Android app, specifically with setting up alternate payment gateways on eBay (other than PayPal) to collect payment on purchased items? I have a client who for various reasons can no longer use PayPal to collect payment on eBay. On purchases made via the website on Desktop there are no problems with Authorize.net. But when people try to purchase via the app specifically, they are given a stupid and unhelpful message to use the desktop browser purchase experience instead. For the client it is costing about 60% of potential eBay sales.

Everything I’ve been reading on eBay’s own forums and elsewhere shows that this is an ongoing and unsolved issue for a lot of store owners and eBay seems to be in no hurry to remedy it. I’ve been over this several times with multiple eBay support reps but all I get are inconsistent and misleading answers. Or maybe I’m just not asking or searching right and the answer is out there somewhere. Any advice?

Which one of you is it that works for Apple or Microsoft and writes the code that tells a computer to slow down, lose its internet connection, freeze, reboot, crash your browser, or generally respond to a request for a website with a friggin' spinning beach ball of death right at the moment of highest productivity or crisis?

Anyone know whether Elegoo is any good? The reviews seem ok. Trying to get into Arduino with the kids. https://www.elegoo.com/

GoDaddy. Is. The. Worst.

I'm working on an SSL cert domain verification for a client. The chat support tech at GoDaddy has no freaking clue what she's doing. She keeps telling me to follow the same help article I already knew about the first second I heard I needed to do this job. It didn't work. But she keeps going back to it, sure that I'm just a complete and utter moron who doesn't read. Never mind that I have screenshots to prove everything she's telling me is 100% wrong according to every error message this process is generating.

Now she's checking with the "SSL team". Which is code for "I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing and I'm frantically searching the FAQ database to figure out what this SSL thing even is."

That's what the last hour of my life has been. And 20 minutes of that was waiting in the chat queue.

Not a dev question but a cultural question for any of the German devs I’ve seen post here.

My American daughter is living in Germany on an exchange student program. She’s frustrated right now because her host dad and host brother are being really rude and impatient with her over her difficulties with speaking the language. She currently writes it better than she speaks but that and her efforts to keep trying don’t seem to matter to them. This conflict spills over into other social interactions. They constantly berate and make fun of her over everything. The host mom and host sister are nicer and more patient. But they also have to put up with this boorish behavior from the males.

On a train ride home, my daughter was sexually propositioned no less than three times in one hour by three different men. And at festivals she went to where there was lots of drinking, it was even worse.

A German exchange student we once had living with us here in the US regularly broke program rules, slept around, and even downloaded child porn on our network (highly illegal and alarming). My wife was the coordinator for many years to govern the students who came here from many countries and we struggle to think of any but one or two German boys who acted like gentlemen toward ladies.

So is it just a “German guy” thing and commonly accepted in the culture? Or is this type of behavior generally frowned upon and these guys are just in a minority of jerks that we keep having the bad luck of running into?

I know the same question can be and is often asked about American men, too. But I’m more interested in knowing how Germans view Germans who act this way.

I used to be able to connect my Windows laptops to any TV with HDMI and duplicate the screen for presentations, watching movies, etc. But since about 6 months ago I can’t get ANY TVs to work with ANY Windows laptops. Everything I’m reading says it’s either out of date drivers (nope) or something to do with a crap update from MS. I’m going with the latter. It can’t be coincidence that ALL my updated machines suddenly can’t do this basic function.

Anyone out there ever had to deal with WordPress in Azure? Do you have any horror stories to share? I’m working on convincing a potential BIG client to switch away from Azure and need some good examples of why it’s not as suitable for large-scale hosting and management of multiple WordPress installs as other solutions available.

Manager: “We need you to stay in the room and not go outside to make personal calls on your mobile.”

Me: “uhmm okaaaay...”

*I get a call* “Yeah, I called about making a doctor appointment....my symptoms? Ummmm...*lowers voice to say it but everyone still hears...totally embarrassing*

Same manager, later, at performance review: “We found it highly inappropriate for you to be talking about your personal medical issues on the phone in front of everyone in the office.”

Accountability Post: I'm 6 Lynda.com tutorials into a 17 tutorial set to rebuild my full stack skills and try to bring them to more current standards. Also looking at additional course paths but feeling a bit overwhelmed when I think of the time it will take just to get through them, let alone all the practice. I must do this, though, and more frequently, even, if I intend to successfully work in this same field for the next 21-ish years until I can retire.

This is legit bad news.

The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies

The attack by Chinese spies reached almost 30 U.S. companies, including Amazon and Apple, by compromising America’s technology supply chain, according to extensive interviews with government and corporate sources.

https://bloomberg.com/news/...

I'm old and dumb comparing how things are today with where I started from. Time to start over again.

I was helping a client launch a new website. We met in a restaurant to do the final launch work. I mentioned I use VPN software to protect my computer on public WiFI and taught him what it means. He said it sounds hackerish and untrustworthy and I had a hard time explaining how it’s actually a countermeasure to hackers.

The next day he calls and says his cell phone is acting up and wants to know what my VPN software might have done to cause that.

How do some people get dressed in the morning?

"You should record video tutorials of how to do stuff", people say to me.

#1 - I suck on camera. I have a really annoying nasally voice that I just can't stand to hear in my own head, let alone on video.
#2 - I look like every stupid a--hole fat old ugly white guy people love to hate. Nobody wants to see that.
#3 - I suck at remembering what the f$$# I was going to say to begin the video, to show the thing I was going to show, and how to end it without sounding like a complete #@#%@# moron.
#4 - %@%$#@ QuickTime! And any other video screen recording software that NEVER $%#@#$% WORKS for me!! I'll be in the middle of a very complex process I'm demonstrating and BAM! The whole recording crashes. Six takes and six more crashes later and I'm @#%#@# done with trying to do this #@$@#%.

Screenshots and text it is and always will be.

Best boss is my current boss(es). They don’t breathe down my neck, no micromanagement, and basically let me outsource anything I don’t want to do or don’t know how to do. I work 100% remote on my own schedule (except for a few core hours) and every time I ask if they have any problems with my work or feedback for my improvement they say they couldn’t be happier. If I make a mistake, they don’t rake me over the coals and they just let me handle the problem.

I’ve been waiting over 20 years for a job like this one. Why can’t it be this way for everyone?

Hmm. This code needs refactoring.
*recodes on Local and uploads*
Works on my branch.
*git push origin master and merge*
Works on Dev.
*deploy to Test*
Works on Test.
*deploy to Live*
Doesn't work.
*compares Live to Test, Dev, and Local*
No f$@%^%%$# difference!?!!

*quits development and lives under a bridge*

I'm trying to move a backup User folder from a dead Windows computer over to cloud storage. In checking the size of the folder before compressing it, it shows as 1.08GB, which I guessed would be reasonable. So I zipped it and it came out to be 48GB!! Compressed to 75%! So I went one folder deeper and checked the properties of all files there. That came out to be much larger than 1.08GB. Thinking Windows has some problem revealing the true size of a parent folder and its content, I did a Google search. Sure enough, it's a bug where incorrect folder size is reported. What the heck is going on at Microsoft that this blatant of a bug would ever have a chance of getting into the code? And why is this single user at 48 GB _compressed_? I'd understand if the user was a photographer, but he's just a gamer, and these aren't applications, just save files and profile settings!

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/...

I just got a free invitation to a HackerX job networking event. Has anyone ever been to one of these events? Is it worth it to go?

I’ve discovered I can almost never do business with friends or become friends with previously non-friend clients. It becomes too often an excuse not to pay me for my work.

I see a lot of great desk setups but none like all the marketing stock photography I keep seeing that tells me I’m a loser if I don’t have an all glass office and all the most expensive stuff.

People at work emailing me with questions and I’m just tryna take a nap.

I gotta say I never understood owning a Roomba until my wife got me an off-brand Deebot one for my birthday. I named it “The Kraken”, as in “release the...” because it sees nothing and devours all. My kids can now rest easy because they won’t hear me complain about how the floor is always dirty and how nobody wants to vacuum but me. Now I just fire up the app, hit “Auto”, and The Kraken cleans my house. It even mops! I feel bad for the doggo, though.

So I go into Google Search Console to try to determine why its saying pages are not compliant with mobile and whatnot.

3 hours later I come out realizing that what Google REALLY wants is for everyone to build every web page as static HTML with no script tags and never a call to an external website. Just dump all that javascript and css and HTML into one BIG FRIGGIN FILE so our crawler feels satisfied that it's loading everything all in one request.

No CMSes allowed unless GOOGLE built it.

Let's just all revert to HTML 1.0 and be done with it.