Sometimes I wonder what I’ve ever done to aggravate computers in general so much.. They are apparently very angry at me for some reason.

Take these couple of days for example. Yesterday I decided that I want to use xna for my project - one of my friends have been talking sooo much about how greeaat it is. So much that it actually made me feel like I had butterflies in my stomach!

It was supposed to be soo easy. No problem at all! Unfortunately, I have a curse on me – so nothing, and absolutely nothing, is easy when it comes to me. When I tried to install it, I only got a message saying “Setup failed”. At first, I tried some stuff you usually do when a setup failed, and tried again and again and again.. Fail, fail, fail. A friend of mine thought it was insaane, since no one he knows have had problems with anything xna related. Then I took a look in the log and found an error code and googled it. For those other kids that got the same error, the only solution were to reinstall their OS. I didn’t do that at once – instead I tested to repair or reinstall .net framework 3.5. Do you think that worked? Nah, of course not.. It kept crashing during installation. So yeah, the problem were probably somewhere around there. Wherever there is!

Today when I woke up I decided to deal with this problem, even if it might take me one day! Tomorrow I shall program, I promised myself. In the morning I realised I had a lot of important updates to do. Maybe that was the problem? When I’d done these updates apps started to update by themselves, and I was asked if I wanted to upgrade to .net framework 3.5. Yes, I thought! Since it had realised by it self that it wanted this it must be ready for xna, right? Yeah, that’s what I thought – but no. .net framework installation continued to crash, and xna setup continued to fail. In the end I just gave up and fetched my copy of Windows 7 and burned it on CD. It took me pretty much forever, just to find out that I as I suspected couldn’t use my key since I’m using it on another computer. Brilliant! Reluctantly I got myself my free copy of Vista (we students are spoiled) instead. That crap did of course however not even want to install. At first I got;

“Windows has encountered a problem communicating with a device connected to your computer.

This error can be caused by unplugging a removable storage device such as an external USB drive while the device is in use, or by faulty hardware such as a hard drive or CD-ROM drive that is failing. Make sure any removable storage is properly connected and then restart your computer.

If you continue to receive this error message, contact the hardware manufacturer.

Status: Oxc00000e9

Info: An unexpected I/O error has occurred. “

Apparently, according to everybody else that got this error, it wouldn’t help to take things out of the computer. The only thing that had worked was apparently switching DVD-reader, which is pretty weird. When I tried to start up Windows 7 again it wanted however to repair, and when I tried to install Vista again after that repair it actually got pass that error! Of course I bumped in to another one though. 0×8007045D. That’s when I gave up and installed Windows 7 again. I can at least use that for three days.. Then I don’t know what I should do. God, all I wanted to do was to program – was I asking too much?

Besides all this I also kept getting chocks from both computers. I didn’t even open them up, I just rebooted and stuff. Why do they want to kill me? Eventually I went down stairs and asked for a grounded electrical socket I could use to get antistatic. After explaining to my father what I meant he thought I was a bit out of my mind, since they’ve always told us to keep our fingers away from electrical sockets ;)

If only I had money, so I can buy whatever I need (it’s obvious that this one is falling appart). To have money however, I need a job – and to get a job, I need to program, and to program I need a functional computer. Gah!

Computers Keendra

Spent the weekend on my beloved TBV in Ronneby and partied, for the first time in a looong time. I had a really wonderful time, it was for sure one of the best nights ever – but like every night it had to end some time..

We started off at SATA:n’s place, where I spent the evening socializing, blowing my damn nose (sick), and most importantly completely pwning people in “Hockey” (card drinking game). After we’d spent about five or six hours there, we finally went to Kåren were I met all the other awesome people! It took me a while to get as far as to the bar, since people I’ve missed kept showing up in front of me. Love! Eventually I finally got there though, and ordered myself a Screw Driver (settled for that as nobody knows what a San Francisco is). That, ladies and gentle men, was the first screw driver in a veeery long time – and oh boy, it was good. I hardly got to take one zip though before some blond guy tried to convince me to shot with his friend. I tried to dodge the invitation at first, since he made it sound like he was trying to set me up with this guy.. You know, How I met your mother-style – “Haave you met {x}?” (don’t remember the name, I’m bad with names). I don’t want people to get the wrong idea :P When Linn came along ready to shot it felt more innocent though, so then I accepted the invitation. Bottom up!

I’d had a little bit more to drink at the “pre party” than I usually have, so that shot went pretty much straight to my head. Somehow I was still doing fine anyway, so off I wandered with my drink and a glass of water that Monticka was sweet enough to hand me when I was shotting. Some friends tried to make me dance, but sorry dudes! There’s just no way I’ll dance no matter how much I drink, I’m just way too aware of how bad my dancing skills are. No, I just walked around and talked to people, that’s more fun imo.

When I’d walked a few rounds in the building and socialized for a while, I came a cross Linn again. The poor thing was surrounded by three guys that were all over her face and touching her ear rings. Yeah I know, wtf? But I wasn’t surprised, as it’s BTH we’re talking about. They are mostly quite the gentle men, but some times it’s like they’re turning in to big, bad, hungry wolves hungry for flesh, so you got to be careful! But that’s a part of what makes partying there such an adventure! I couldn’t quite read her, she looked so surprised so I didn’t know if she wanted me to save her.. But as I walked by she desperately grabbed my hand and told the guys that she’s sorry, but that we really must go and dance. Though, as you all know by now I’m not a fan of dancing – but she was thankfully very open to my suggestion to socialize by the bar instead. Phew! ;-)

Then it didn’t take long before we ran out of time.. The last 40 minutes I was just wishing I could stop time! But I can’t, so that was my saturday.. Doesn’t say alot, but it’s quite a resumé of what happened that night. In between there were a lot of talking with wonderful people! Really sad that we won’t afford to come visit more often..

Uncategorized Keendra

The Pink Folder

Went in to town yesterday, to the employment service and got myself a pink folder. Pretty, isn’t it? Very brilliant of them to pick such an extreme color! In that way, eeeveryone in town that see you carry around on it can know that you’re unemployed. Isn’t that just fantastic? .. Yeah, sarcasm ;-)

Don’t want to share too much on how my job hunt is going.. It would be too difficult not to brag, and nobody likes a brager – right? :P Nah, it’s not that awesome, but a few things happened so quickly after I’d just made my profile public on Monster, and added my CV to Arbetsförmedlingens website (Swedish employment service).. I also had that interview today, with that other company (fine, that other company is CCP). We’ll see what happens there..

Anyhow I must keep my feet on the ground, which is hard since I’m such a dreamer and tend to fly away all the time. I also need to try harder on giving other companies the attention and interest they deserve, but it’s been hard since I left my heart at Massive. They take such good care of it and makes it feel all safe and happy, I don’t want to take it back.. Too bad the reality is that nothing is 100% certain, otherwise I could have used all my spare time on improving instead of worrying about work!

Soon off to see Avatar 3D. To be honest I’m very sceptical, but I guess it will be interesting to see it in 3D.

Game industry CCP, Ubisoft Massive Keendra

I’ve thought about sharing my Keendraism with the world, since I’m so.. Swell! Haven’t happened yet though, but now something have come up that opens a window for me to share my wisdom. So today I’m going to start the Keendraism-”shareness” by discussing meaningless, unwritten social rules. The rules today’s entry involves are;

- Friends should not touch any of your exes.

- Exes should not touch any of your friends.

Apperently there was a chain reaction happening on Facebook yesterday, I just didn’t see it then. It started with some pictures being uploaded, then a few “coded” words of anger from a friend in her Facebook status, and ended with her exs/my other friends facebook status saying it’s a good thing he has whiskey at home so he can ease on his nerves. If it wasn’t for the blog entry made by the angry friend I wouldn’t have known about this chain, but now I see it all must be related. It all had to do with a picture, where the ex kisses someone else. Well, it happened to be a friend of the person who reacted with anger, but whatever..

The situation reminds me of a situation many years ago. One of my two best friends came to me and told me about this biiig betrayal from one of her best friend’s; she had slept with my friend’s ex. I explained to her that I don’t share her views on this scenario, but I ofcourse understand that since they both mean to follow these lame rules, and since the friend knew these rules mattered to her, this was indeed a betrayal. However, if you people would’ve thought in a different way, you wouldn’t had to be betrayed from the first place. From where I stand, it seems more like it’s actually you people who are hurting yourselves. Not your friends, not your exes – You! Because these rules are not some universal rules created by nature that you are forced to follow – it’s rules made up by some selfish, jealous person that think’s he or she have the right to own other people and should be allowed to dictate their lives. It’s in no way healthy rules to live by.

There are a couple of things I’d like you people who follow these stupid rules to think about. Actually, I’d like to slap you on the back of your heads. Think a little, why don’t you!?

First of all – in both of the scenarios mentioned above it was the girl feeling betrayed that broke off the relationship and entered a new relationship. Who the hell are you then to deny your ex any happiness what so ever? In my opinion, you’re in no position to feel betrayed in this scenario what so ever.

Second of all – according to my logic it’s better to aim for happiness than to aim for drama and pain. To see other people happy should not cause you pain, especially not if it’s such important people to you like your friends and exes. If that do, you’re probably the one with a problem! That is something you need to work on and that has nothing to do with your ex or friends. The correct way to feel in this situation is according to me joy – joy that your fellow beings are doing well! The fact that they’re doing eachother happy should be the very least of your problems.

So the lesson of today is something like “You shall never deny other people happiness and love, nor shall you cause them misery”.. Or like Abraham Lincoln once said;

“Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it”

Friends or foes, strangers or not – feel free to kiss my exes as much as you like!

Society Keendraism Keendra

Got the “verdict” from Massive yesterday. Didn’t hear the phone ring, but when I got back to my computer I saw that I had a new e-mail from Massive and also a message on the phone telling me I had a new voicemail. I read the e-mail first, and to summarize the letter said “no”. It did though say a lot more, but unfortunately also that they in the end decided to pick someone else..

I’d really gotten my hopes up, and since I’d actually been at the company and met the pleasant people I would’ve worked with if I got the job I know that I’d really loved working there. Therefor it was with tears in my throat I walked down the stairs to tell the part of my family that was home at that hour about the bad news. Well down there, I couldn’t get the words out so I just sat there with a strained smile and nodded to what they said. A few minutes later I tried to throw the words out of me so with a shaky voice I said “it won’t be any Massive”. Then I gave a couple of short answers to their questions and walked away to listen to the voicemail Massive had left me. And what a voicemail that was! It was probably the best “no” you can actually get from a company. It didn’t take long before a smile grew back on my face and until my happiness bar was back on top. I’m not going to go in to details on what was said, but it sounded like I might have a future at the company after all! I’m going to stay in touch and then we’ll see what happens..

Even though I didn’t get the job I must say I’m quite pleased with the whole experience. It was one of the two first jobs I applied to, and I came to the “final round” – and was really well considered by them, and did apparently successfully make a good impression on them. I did screw up a bit when I didn’t have all the answers close enough in my mind (yet still they were somewhere in there, they just appeared too late ;)), but I still think that their idea about what support I need from them to become as useful to them as I possible can is quite correct. I also felt like I broke pretty much every rule of  what you should and should not do during an interview, so what I left them with was simply an honest image of who I am, what I’m like, some of my strengths, and all of my weaknesses. The fact that I gave them everything does however just make the fact that they liked me even more meaningful!

New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Oh well, like I said; we’ll see what happens. On that evening my best friend Frida (who by the way has a boyfriend that works at that company ;)) came over with chocholate and other candy to comfort me with and spent the evening playing New Super Mario Bros Wii with me (again) xD

With this I have reconsidered what project to work with. I think I’ll go back to my old idea, which will challenge my head more. That project is however huuuuge and not a one-man project, but then I’ll atleast always have something to work with ;)

On tuesday I’m having an interview with that other company of those two I applied to. My oh my.. Will they manage to reclaim some of my passion, that Massive so sweetly stole away? Will I manage to make a just as strong impression on them? Stay tuned to find out.. Nah, joke joke..

Game industry Ubisoft Massive Keendra

Yes, I admit. I’m one of those hopeless, annoying people that play FarmVille, and spam my friends news page with FarmVille stuff (those who are bothered should however learn how to block). This completely pointless game have though taught me one thing – which is just exactly how important it is with that little, simple detail of measuring progress. It’s one of the easiest things to implement, yet often one of the most powerful elements of a game. Sure, it’s quite obvious that it makes a big difference in game play, but like I said, FarmVille is really showing me just how much difference it makes. You see, I actually hate FarmVille. It’s like I said completely pointless, and all you do is to click, click, click, for hours and hours and the only thing that happens is pretty much that you harvest, plow and seed. Over and over again, every fourth hour of every day. It’s super boring and time consuming, but I keep on doing it just to compete against my friends in XP. So you see, without the progress measuring, I wouldn’t kept playing it – but now I’ve done that for at least half a year just because I compete with friends. Madness.. Madness, I tell you!

I’m actually having a problem keeping up now though.. My friends were so slow in the beginning, so even though I started late I was nr 1 in no time. After some time it got really boring though, since I had no competition, so I hardly played for a couple of months. Thought about retireing, but then suddenly a bunch of my friends really sort of exploded and gained xp super quickly and even climbed past me, so now I’m playing like a maniac again. Maybe should’ve retired when I was at the top though, because I really can’t stand a chance now. No matter what I do they’re just increasing their distance from me more and more. I guess that should make me happy, I obvioustly have more of a life now.. *Secretly insulting them* ;)

Video games FarmVille Keendra

Isn’t getting sick the best possible way of starting the new year? That’s apparently what my body thought.. So here I am with pains in my throat and with a heavy head. Fantastic! I’ve been so weak lately, I can hardly be around people without getting sick.. Oh well, I guess my body is just taking on all the challenges and tries to get stronger so I’m less sick when I’m finally employed.. Right?

Being sick does however not stop me from trying to do something useful. Yesterday I drew a little on a UML for my new project, and now I started the morning by installing all required java stuff that I need to be able to develop my mobile game. Unsure if I’m missing something though. It was much easier to install the required stuff when I used NetBeans, it was pretty clear.. NetBeans does however drive you crazier and crazier the longer you use it, so now I’m using Eclipse instead because it should be better, but it’s for sure not making the installation easier for me. I’ll just keep on messing with it, and hope that it will give in eventually ;)

Uncategorized Eclipse, Game, Java, Mobile, NetBeans Keendra

I have now come to terms with that I’m one of those so called “unemployed” and not so much a student any more. I would’ve preferred the term “between jobs” better, but fact is I’m not.. Maybe we could say I’m between studies and job? Oh well, whatever we choose to call it, I’d rather not be. However, the fact that I don’t have a job (jet) does for sure not mean that I’m out of work. I have so much to do, I don’t know where to begin. I need to write my bachelor’s thesis, finish a project I apparently weren’t done with, make a new design and update a page I’m the web administrator for, add some ajax-stuff to my own page to make it even more awesome, search for jobs (if I didn’t get the one I’m aiming for), finish Dragon Age, continue to play Sims 3 :$, play through Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2, and start programming on my dear project. Don’t know in which end of that list I better start; the front is the most boring one, but affects my CV.. The end has the most fun things, that’s affecting my job interviews.. Yeah, since I’m a game programmer company like me better if I play computer games. Just imagine a job that actually requires you to play! That’s why I allow myself to play even when I have so much to do :)

Uncategorized Keendra

I shouldn’t have blogged about it, now I’m again obsessing over the interview. But then again, I’d probably done that anyway.. I need a distraction, and I need it now! Would have been a good idea to program right now, but I guess I need to prepare for heading into the woods instead.. I’m so annoyed right now that I couldn’t solve the problems right there and then, and also for the questions I didn’t reply to well enough when I really have the answers in my head. I’ve walked out my bedroom door three times just walking around and realising that it doesn’t fix anything. The only thing I can do now is to wait and hope.. Guess I should take a writing pad with me so I atleast can write on my game idea, sooner or later that has to be able to distract all parts of my head, right? Aaargh..

Uncategorized Keendra

This is what’s going on and that’s why I’ve been so quiet lately.

Had my second interview with company nr 1 yesterday. Think that the interview in general went quite well, besides the fact that they made me feel all comfortable so I actually gave them a few of my disadvantages for free.. It’s a traap? :D .. And besides the fact that I was asked some math questions I couldn’t quite answer right there and then. Nothing difficult, I just haven’t done math in a while so I couldn’t quite remember how to solve them. I’ve “slept” on them now though, so now when I woke up at 7 am I’d fetched the required information from my subconscious and could the answer of the questions about the same minute I woke up. Is that annoying or what? Well, atleast on two of them, I don’t quite remember how to count on the dot product.. But I’ll probably know after refreshing my memory with the book for a couple of minutes.. Oh crap, it was just the formula I had in mind when I sat there staring on the math problem. Someone should slap me! I even held the book in my hands the day before the interview, why oh why didn’t I just eye through it a little and refresh my memory then? WHY? I hope that they’ll have mercy on my soul still, and that they saw that I have great potential even though I didn’t quite succeed to show myself from my best sides. The more I think about the interview though, the more I want to bury my face in my hands. I’m obsessive like that.. But we’ll see! All I can do now is to pray ;) But it was the same after interview one.. When the interview was over I thought about the questions I couldn’t quite reply to and got hit with “Oh riight, THAT” all the time. Evil brain, keeping things from me like that :(

When I after the interview had arrived in Hässleholm I was quite impatient, so I checked my e-mail to see if they’d contacted me already. I know that’s very soon, but since they actually called me back an hour after interview one when they’d said I won’t hear from them until next week, nothing is impossible. They hadn’t, but then I saw that company nr 2. had e-mailed me and written that they’d tried to contact me the day before because they want to have an interview with me! They are a bit funny like that, I tried to get their attention for half a year atleast, and I didn’t hear a word from them. One day after company nr 1 had contacted me and asked me to do a programming test for them, company nr 2 contacted me about a programming test aswell. Then I didn’t hear a word, while company nr 1 was very quick to respond and set me up for an interview and even for a second interview. And now, when I’m awaiting the “verdict” from company nr 1, company 2 tell me they want an interview. It’s like they can sense that someone else is interested so now they’re trying to make a move on me!  Can’t say that I’m not pleased that both the companies I applied to were interested in me, I feel loooved! :D Just hope I didn’t blow it with company nr 1, because they are indeed very interesting! Can’t believe how fast I felt like I belonged there..

Game industry Interview, Job Keendra