The IT Juggler

Helping you keep all the balls in the air

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Confessions of a department store Santa

Confessions of a department store Santa

Sometimes, opportunity doesn’t knock. Sometimes it throws the door open and yells out “Merry Christmas!”. This year, opportunity came to me wearing a wig, beard, big shiny gumboots, and a Santa suit. For 5 weekends, my Saturdays transported me to a Winter wonderland and transformed me into the very public persona of Santa Claus at a local department store.

Regardless of age, there’s something…

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Unionize Your Variables – An Introduction to Advanced Data Types in C Programming C without variables is like, well, programming C without variables. They are so essential to the language that it doesn’t even require an analogy here.

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Is IoT The Next Big Thing? There's been a lot of discussion about Cloud, be it Hybrid or Full. A lot of vendor marketing chatter about "Big Data" and things like Hadoop Cubes.

[theitjuggler]

Widget

A premiere version of the everyday widget.

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Communication is key

As a customer-focussed IT professional, communication is key to ensuring a happy customer. It’s not rocket science! One of my colleagues, aka Panda, always said that TOFU was the way to get a happy customer.. Take Ownership Follow Up.

One of the projects I’ve been working on, alongside my daily doses of TOFU, is to get a new faster, more notes, better, Internet link for the office. The drinking…

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Looking for a photographer? The website www.photographers.com.au/ came across my feed recently. If you're in Australia and you're looking to quickly find a photographer for that special event, or even just to make a time-chronicle of your family then I'd suggest that you take a look.

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The dreaded phone call

The dreaded phone call

Yesterday it happened. Not just once. Twice! I got the dreaded phone call. The phone call that strikes fear into the bravest of men. The phone call that makes babies cry out, and mothers to clutch their children closer.

I got the automated robot call that waited just long enough for me to say “Hello?” before spewing a pre-recorded political spiel down the line. Waited just long enough to ensure…

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A State of Flux

A State of Flux

Three days ago, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. In four days, Australia votes for the Australian Federal government. The United States are also in the throes of a Presidential election. It feels like our whole world is in a state of Flux.

We’ve seen all manner of changes to the political landscape in recent times. Wikileaks, Anonymous, The Panama Papers – it seems as though…

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Martin Place one year on

Martin Place one year on

One year ago today, I was holed up in my office near Martin Place. One year ago, as Floor Warden, I was trying to keep an office full of men and women calm in the face of a virtually unknown threat. One year ago, I had to send an SMS to my wife and children to let them know I was safe before they heard the news when they landed from an interstate trip.

The Martin Place siege, as it has come to be…

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Pride comes before a camera replacement

Pride comes before a camera replacement

 There’s a lot to be said for not trying to over-reach your talent and ability. Most times, you are just going to walk away with the figurative “egg on your face”, but it is those other times that are going to cost you money.

This is one of the “this will cost you money” events, could almost be an addendum to my last post There are old pilots…

About a month ago, my son went to a birthday party,…

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Up a tree

There are old pilots. And there are bold pilots. But there are no old, bold pilots.

Last Sunday, I had about two hours of time where I figured I could get some flight time in. The netball courts near home seemed to be a good place to get some more minutes in – about 4 netball courts of space, and should be pretty quiet. Was I ever wrong! After about ten minutes of doing some circuits around a…

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Flight Log Seeing as this is my first real remote control airborne vehicle, I decided to also keep a logbook of my flights, documenting things I learnt and the conditions I flew in.

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My First Flight Outdoors - Syma XC5

My First Flight Outdoors – Syma XC5

It was my birthday three and a half weeks ago. My little boy, with the help of my wife’s money (!), presented me with a Syma XC5 quadcopter/drone as my present. I have been wanting a quad for the longest time, ever since I saw the Parrot AR.Drone come on the market. After several indoor flights to work out trim adjustments, and to sort out how the camera worked, I decided it was time to take my…

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Courage to do the right thing

Courage to do the right thing

Courage

A word that evokes both a mental image and an emotional response, that conjures up the image of the heroic acts of the physically strong, an soul-based acknowledgement of the passion and drive to perform that act.

Courage, defined by some, is the ability to do something that frightens one, or strength in the face of pain or grief. Courage, defined by others, is not the absence of fear but…

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Post Show Depression

 I’m going to put this right here – CAVEAT: I’m only a three show veteran so I’m no expert. Your mileage may vary.

Today is the first real day after the seventeen performance run of Mary Poppins, and I’m firmly in the grips of what is known in theatre circles as “Post Show Depression” or PSD. The Urban Dictionary defines PSD as:

The feeling after a musical is over and you realize you have no…

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The power of the Understudy

The power of the Understudy

As some of you may be aware, I am currently part of the ensemble cast for the Packemin Productions presentation of The Phantom of the Opera, and previously for Beauty and the Beast. On Friday 6th of February, we opened Phantom and have received great reviews. If you know the story of ‘Phantom’ you will recall that the first plot twist occurs when the young dancer Christine Daaé is put forward as…

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Don’t Answer Emails That Lack Questions Is it rude to ignore emails? Yes. But does it happen anyways? Yes. And can anyone blame you?