Romance and JavaScript

I just received a book order from O'Reilly Media. It didn't quite go as planned...
Here is the email I sent their customer service department.

I daresay there was a problem with the book order I just received. I had ordered CSS Pocket Reference (9780596515058), HTML and XHTML Pocket Reference (9780596527273), and JavaScript Pocket Reference (9780596004118). I received the CSS and HTML Pocket References, however, instead of the JavaScript Pocket Reference, I received "On a Wild Night", a paperback romance novel by Stephanie Laurens. Needless to say, this is not what I want. While I appreciate O'Reilly Media trying to add some excitement and romantic zest to my life, I'm far more in need of exciting JavaScript flings at the moment. I can't even imagine how this book was placed in my order, since O'Reilly Media focuses on technical computer books, and doesn't even sell this book. Perhaps Ms. Laurens is not selling as many books as she would like, and is subverting O'Reilly's shipping department by slipping in copies of her books to unsuspecting customers, in the hopes they will enjoy it and buy more?

In any case, please send the JavaScript Pocket Reference, as that would be absolutely wonderful. Again, the order number is 171212.11860740.

Yours in romance,
Matthew Harrison

EDIT: This was replied to by a very nice customer service rep named Tammie. She said I made her Friday and she loves my humor =) She's going to send me the JavaScript book, and in addition, said I could pick ANY O'Reilly book and she would send that as well! So I picked Mind Performance Hacks, and as an added, super-awesome bonus, Tammie said she included an additional surprise book for me! (It's this book).

Talk about caring about your customers! O'Reilly not only has an awesome collection of books that any geek desires to have, but they clearly have really good customer support. O'Reilly++

GSoC 2008

It's very, very difficult to believe that a year has gone by since I started this blog, and it's already time for Google Summer of Code 2008.

I see I haven't made a post since last August. It seems that whenever I try to blog, I inevitably run into the dilemma of being busy enough to have tons of stuff to blog about, but being too busy to actually blog about it. Hopefully I'll get a good run before I end up doing that again. Here is a very brief summary of what I've been up to since last summer:

* I'm no longer working on my project for OpenMRS. It's moving on in new and exciting directions and I believe there's some GSoC work being done on it this year. I plan to work on their documentation restructuring project with Michelle Murrain, which will hopefully be a project that I continue with well after the summer.

* I have an iPhone! It's fantastic. I've never owned a cell phone before, but this is so much more than a phone. I immediately jailbroke it and installed many extraordinarily useful applications. I don't know what I'd do without this - I've gotten so much utility out of it. It's great having Internet everywhere I am, even if it is EDGE. Now that the iPhone SDK is out, I really hope I'll have some time to hack around and make my own apps.

* I got an XO! I asked for the give one get one program for Christmas. Unfortunately, I haven't had much time to dedicate to hacking on it, but I have some ideas.

* I took "Intro to Computation" in school, which is basically discrete math. I learned a lot of really cool things, and next semester I'm taking Intro to Algorithms, Intro to Software Engineering, and Programming Language Paradigms. Good stuff.

* My ThinkPad died =( Something weird happened - it would cycle from battery to AC adapter rapidly, and wouldn't hold a charge. One day the plastic of the adapter melted within the plug, and I can't charge or use it. Otherwise, it's fully functional, and I was thinking of getting a dock and charger to see if I could use it like that.

* I replaced the ThinkPad with...a Blackbook! Wonderful machine. The built-in resolution is a bit small, but I have it hooked up to my 19" LCD and am using a dual-monitor setup so I have lots of screen real estate. Good stuff.

* I have a couple of awesome new lenses for my camera, but that's a story for another blog =)

This year, I've been accepted to GSoC to work with the Software Freedom Conservancy on a project to modernize their web annotation system. Proposal here. I'll be working with JavaScript and jQuery to write the system, so I've been reading tutorials for both and playing around. jQuery looks really, really cool. I'm excited. I'm working with Joshua Gay, an active member of the free software community. I've actually known him for years now - we met through a mutual friend and he used to go to the same school as me. I anticipate having a really good working relationship with him and getting some good stuff done.

That's all for now. Check back for updates!